Stuck in the Middle with You
by Kayka
Summary: Rogue finds herself in a tight spot and the enemy of her enemy is… Sabretooth. This is bound to end well. Victrie. Canon Divergence. COMPLETE.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer:** X-Men is yet another thing that is not mine. I'm just here to poke dubiously at established plot, shred it into itsy bitsy pieces, and disregard said pieces entirely whilst finding new and exciting ways irritate and/or torture this pair of unlikely companions.

* * *

**Reading Order (Optional):**

**Boo:** Takes place just prior to this story. Victor POV. Not strictly necessary, but events from this one-shot are referenced in Stuck.

**Stuck in the Middle with You**

**Bite Sized:** Post-Stuck in the Middle with You flash fics

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**A quick note on setting/timeline:** So, the movieverse is a mess these days. I'm going to call this "Movieverse: X1 and X-Men Origins: Wolverine compliant" and AU after X1. Some elements (but not direct story lines) from the other movies/comics/general Marvel universe will come into play and be reworked to suit my own nefarious purposes.

* * *

**Prologue**

* * *

Victor Creed was having yet another shitty day in a long line of shitty days. This would definitely be the last time he free-lanced for Magneto; that man's batshit crazy agenda just wasn't worth it when you ended up effectively dead and defenseless. No matter how temporarily.

Boats didn't exactly make for a soft landing, but with being blasted off of the head of the Statue of Liberty, the water would have been like smashing into concrete, too. Plus there would've been the whole drowning factor, which was a bitch to come back from.

And then _they_ showed up while his spine was fucked, and he couldn't lift a damned paw against them. The fuckers jabbed him with something before packing him up on a gurney and driving off under the guise of an ambulance. Victor passed in and out of consciousness during the transport, his healing factor now working over time on two fronts. He felt fairly lucid by the time they stopped less than an hour later.

The entire way through the sterile facility, Victor memorized the route, working out his plan of escape. They made it too easy. Sloppy. No effort to blindfold him or nothing.

He was mere seconds away from ripping out the throat of the nearest tech wheeling the gurney. From there, eviscerate a few scientists, take out a few guards, and he was home free.

Victor's fingers twitched to life an instant before the damning ring of metal snapped closed around his neck.

* * *

**Chapter 1**

* * *

_Three Mile Island, Six years later_

Marie bolted through the door of the abandoned facility as shots rang out overhead. In retrospect, this _might_ have been a stupid idea, especially carrying it out at night.

Alone.

But this defunct base had been her best lead- Now, however, her pursuers were hot on her tail, and she would just have to bemoan the fact that she never got the chance to nose around as intended later. If she made it out, that is. She needed to get back outside, but several wrong turns found her further underground than before in a room filled with cages. Or what was left of them. If those slashes told her anything, it confirmed that Logan had definitely been here once upon a time.

The figure dropped down in front of her so swiftly that Rogue almost did not have time to divert her course. She swerved, managing to land a kick to the hulking man's midsection before she found herself jerked up to his eye-level by her collar.

"A week of surveillance and you manage to fuck everything up in one night. I'm starting to sense a pattern," Sabretooth growled at her.

Legitimately _growled_.

His hair was shorn in a cropped, militaryesque style. He'd ditched the furs she remembered for fatigues and a long, dark coat. Perhaps the most notable change, aside from the fact that his pupils weren't blown, and his eyes were a steely blue, was the collar around his neck. Funny, she hadn't noticed it in their brief run-in a few weeks prior.

"Nice necklace ya got there, Sabretooth."

It probably was not best opening line to throw at her once captor and current knight-in-a-big-black-duster. And in a more sane universe, she would have turned tail and run straight for the people shooting at her. But Rogue's universe was not precisely sane, and by all accounts, the feral man was her best bet of getting out of this little mess alive and unincarcerated.

Marie knew it was beyond presumptuous to think he would help her, but fortunately, he seemed come to a similar let's-work-together conclusion. Or, more likely, the giant of a man figured that he could deal with her after their mutual enemy was neutralized.

The ensuing action was brief, and they worked together surprisingly well. It was almost like having Logan at her back-

She drew away from the painful thought as she finally managed to incapacitate her enemy without getting any particularly nasty wounds or additional personalities for her trouble.

Ultimately, Sabretooth took down three of the soldiers to her one. But then, he had not exactly needed to dodge bullets if he didn't feel like it. She thought she was doing good to get off with only a few scrapes. Plus, her target was merely unconscious whereas his were rather graphically eviscerated.

And just like that, it was over.

Marie stood awkwardly for a moment while Sabretooth picked at the remains and swore.

'How to properly form a temporary alliance with an enemy and subsequently dissolve that alliance without getting yourself killed' was not exactly covered in the X-Men training field guide. The Logan in her head eloquently told her to 'just get the fuck out of there while he's distracted, kid.' But he had essentially been saying that from the moment she set foot on the property, so, the woman didn't count that personality as especially helpful at the moment. Aside from that, she was pretty sure that there was blood spatter on her clothes from the feral's less than clinical takedown methods.

_Ick._

But those soldiers couldn't have been the only ones on patrol. Marie knew she had stumbled onto something bigger than just a defunct base that Logan once went to looking for answers.

The Wolverine was missing and one of the places he'd been in the past few years was under what appeared to be fairly recent military surveillance.

Mental Logan was right. She needed to get out of here, but maybe this would be enough evidence for the Professor to send a team out to help her.

Before she followed that line of thought further, Marie's eye was drawn back to the metal ring around Sabretooth's neck. Rogue had never been one to let matters drop, especially when she felt she could do something about it. And her assistance might make them even in his eyes.

"No, really. It's some kind of inhibitor, isn't it? I've never seen a metal one before. Do you need help getting it of-"

"This goddamn collar's the only thing standin' between me and ripping out your throat!" Sabretooth snarled and lunged at her before collapsing back with a roar.

"What the hell!?" The young woman jumped back into a defensive stance and worked off one of her gloves. If it came down to it, she was reasonably sure she could drop him before he could make good on that threat.

"Still so eager to get me out of it, sweetheart?" His tone was bitter. He rose, shaking his head as it to clear it.

_Okay. No more talking about Mr. Kitty's necklace. No-ted._

Marie eyed the large feral warily and the moment passed. His limitations obviously did not extend to his enemies; he took out those soldiers without any adverse effects, but Rogue thought it best not to test her tentative safety.

"I was just trying to return the favor since, well, you know." She gestured vaguely to their former enemies. "And nobody deserves that," she pointed to the device. "Not even you."

"Maybe I like you owing me. Now, scram, frail." Dismissal. He accentuated his point by breaking the neck of the one soldier she had neutralized.

Despite her vague abhorrence at his ease with act, Marie found room for blossoming irritation.

"Didn't wanna thank you anyway, asshole." She muttered under her breath. He undoubtedly heard her, but he did not deign to acknowledge it as she turned heel and made her way back toward the exit.

She wished she had time to do a bit more snooping, but the longer she stayed, the more likely it was that she would have more soldiers breathing down her neck. This being an unsanctioned, self-imposed mission meant zero chance for getting timely back up.

Her whole case was circumstantial, but this little trip was enough for her to believe that her suspicions were confirmed: Logan hadn't just gone off for some more soul searching without telling anyone. He had been taken.

She turned the handle of the door, or rather, she attempted to- the construction did not budge. Marie narrowly resisted the urge to bang her head against it.

Without a word, Sabretooth strode over and wrenched the door off its hinges. Marie couldn't decide if it was chivalry or a keen desire to be rid of her.

_Not the time to look a gift horse in the mouth_, she thought.

Rather than return to his task, the man fell in step beside her.

"Shouldn't we do something about them?" Rogue asked, in reference to the slain soldiers they were leaving behind.

She caught the clench of his jaw out of the corner of her eye.

"No point, now. We got ten minutes tops before the cavalry comes in. Might wanna put some pep in your step, kid."

She followed the man only because he seemed to have a better idea of the layout than she did. He _could_ be leading her into a trap, but she didn't think so. He had as much motivation to get out of there as she did, if not more. Within two minutes, he had her back at the main door to outside and freedom.

Marie didn't think she would be able to make it off the island and back to her car within the estimated eight-minute time frame, though. And she really did not feel like a swim in the river.

Sabretooth spoke, jerking her from her musings over polluted river water and how nice it would be to have a useful mutation, like the ability to fly.

"What're you doin' out here all alone without the GeekSquad, anyway?"

"What are you doing here, yourself?" Marie countered stubbornly.

"My job. Now _you_, on the other hand-"

What was she doing in an old, half-destroyed nuclear power plant that had obviously once served as a cover for some government facility? If his senses were anything like Logan's he'd smell if she was lying. Sabretooth was a feral, after all.

And Logan, well, it was all his fault she was out trying to find him with only half a clue where to start looking in the first place.

Wolverine had been gone from the mansion for nearly a month. That in itself was not so unusual for a man near constantly searching for clues about his past. The unusual part came from the complete lack of contact from him for the past three, going on four, weeks.

He'd never quite condescended to get a cell phone, but he kept the X-Communicator handy, and even occasionally remembered to check in and let her know he was alive. Now the device was dead and untraceable.

But then he had never checked in _this_ time to begin with.

No one else seemed to be worried about that fact. Jean just told her that the batteries had probably run out or he had otherwise damaged it. He was not the most careful of creatures when it came to technology after all. Logan would come back eventually and Marie would see that she had worried for nothing.

But Rogue had a feeling in her gut that they were all wrong. And she trusted her gut more than she trusted the team when it came to the Wolverine. Normally, Marie could read when he was getting ill-at-ease with X-mansion life, and this time, he had shown none of his usual tells that he was about to cut and run.

They all just woke up one day and he was gone.

Kind of like how the team didn't exactly know she was gone looking for him. Or they might by now, but that was a secondary point.

Anyway, she didn't think her erstwhile enemy needed to know anything _that _specific.

Marie slowed down a bit, starting to feel a stitch in her side.

Their brisk pace had them covering the expanse of the parking lot. Unlike her, the feral was apparently ballsy enough to park on the property.

"Logan's gone, and I'm-" Marie stumbled forward; her vision blurred, "I'm-"

Sabretooth's brow furrowed as he reached to steady her. She was having trouble focusing and her own labored breathing seemed abruptly loud to her ears.

"You get hit?"

"I- Uh- _Oh_," Marie replied intelligibly, as everything went black.

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**A/N:** There is a tangential one-shot related to this story called, "Boo," which you can find on my profile. It's not terribly necessary to this fic, but it's there if anyone wants a bit more elaboration on their previous, recent encounter. And the events occurring in it may be referenced again later.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

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If he were smart, he would have ditched the kid immediately. Left her to fend for herself. Worst came to worst, she could've drained the bastards. Or been shot. It shouldn't have made any difference to him.

If he'd been smart, he definitely would have left after she dropped from whatever they dosed her with.

No one had ever accused Victor of being smart, and keeping the X-Geeklet with him while going on the run ranked as the most not-smart thing he had done in recent memory.

Well, barring the time he'd brought a toddler to a gunfight, but _that_ wasn't his fault, and he dumped the girl off on a startled weather witch the first chance he got. Unscathed, at that.

But _this_. _This_ was a lapse in judgment, no two ways about it.

If it hadn't been for his damned curiosity and the fact that those soldiers had it out for her before she ever stepped foot on the property…

Victor scooped her up and stashed her in the passenger seat.

He found the source of her affliction as soon as he buckled her in- a scrape on her arm. The one she'd fought at close range had been a mutant, but she probably didn't know that at the time. The scent he picked up made him lean toward poison as the culprit.

_Better than dealing with a bullet wound, _Victor thought, _less blood in the truck, at any rate._

Maybe he'd fix'er up, satisfy his need to know her end of it, and send her on her way. His good deed for the century or some shit.

Which lead to the second stupid thing he did that day. He touched the Rogue's bare skin.

Victor held on for barely ten seconds, just long enough for her mutation to activate and keep her alive until he got them wherever they were going. She was still grayish, but her breathing was better as his borrowed healing started to fix the damage and un-paralyze her muscles.

He barely even felt woozy.

That was a lie; he was achy and nauseated and felt fucking mortal for once, but he got the truck moving all the same.

He sped off immediately, cutting the lights as soon as he was outside the glowing haze of the city.

They were not obviously followed, but that didn't mean anything, with his collar still active.

The tracking was spotty and limited in range. It turned out that Secondary came with some unexpected shielding interference. At least _that_ worked in his favor, but if the bastards got lucky and picked up a stray signal, they'd be on'em in no time.

They would expect him to immediately head north and make a break for the border. He had made no secret of his plan to ditch the states and head for Canada once his contract was up.

And that was exactly why he was headed west.

His handlers knew very well his affiliation with the Island. Even after all this time, they still thought he was some dumb animal and wouldn't make connections.

Those soldiers that he eliminated were the Organization's own. Victor had figured that out on the first day of surveillance. Then there was the info he found on the corpses. Well, he didn't need to have all the pieces to the puzzle to figure out the big picture.

If they were going after the goody-goodies, it wasn't like they would live up to their end of the deal when it came to him, neither. An immortal collared assassin? They'd have to be fucking stupid to let him go on his own merry way.

The whole thing was rotten, and the animal in him had an opinion about being bound up a minute longer. But Victor was practical. He intended to play along with their little game until they released him. At least that had been the plan. If nothing else, he always kept his word- but they had broken theirs, and by his logic, their contract was null and void.

Too bad they wouldn't see it that way.

They would see that he killed their soldiers and colluded with their target. The fact that they set it up was immaterial.

Victor needed to disappear, at least until he could get the collar off.

As soon as he came to this conclusion, his phone buzzed in his pocket.

He flipped the phone open and the directive, 'Bring female in for questioning,' flashed up at him.

And that cinched it.

"Well, fuck, there goes my pardon. I hope you're happy, frail." He said to the unconscious woman next to him. Four more years of being the government's clean up crew, and he would have been a free man; the contract he was press-ganged into signing paid in full.

As far as government gigs went, it had not been so bad. Better than Stryker's team after Jimmy left, anyway. They'd even fixed him up a bit in the beginning rather than experimenting on him like Stryker did. Matter o' fact, his blood lust had not peaked since they latched the goddamned collar on his neck. Though whether that was due to his line of work satiating it or some aspects of the thing actually working was debatable.

He'd been expecting a set up from the minute the US government got him under contract again, and he was fairly surprised that they hadn't done it earlier.

The phone buzzed again. 'Return to base immediately. Two hours,' the text read.

Victor rolled his eyes. "Like you don't already have your hounds after me."

He crushed the device and threw it out the window before speeding up again.

The house in New York was out, Chicago probably, too. But Minneapolis seemed abstract enough a destination, and Victor was reasonably sure that the government goons didn't know about his holdings there.

And from there he would get to Canada and the fuck away from people for a while. Eventually.

His frail pining for peace and quiet and clean mountain air was interrupted by a pained moan from the woman beside him.

The kid was a liability. The sooner he sated his curiosity about her and figured out her angle in this whole little fiasco, the better. Then he could ditch her or kill her.

Saving her only to immediately kill her felt wasteful, especially when she wasn't a half bad brawler and had his back when it counted.

He didn't want to contemplate that maybe the real reason he picked her up was because she was the only tenuous connection to his brother.

But it was more than that. He felt… invested. For the first time in years, Victor felt the animal rearing its head paying attention to _everything_. It was pissed when he confirmed his suspicions. Even more so after he found the orders that marked her as a target. They had lured Rogue there somehow. Merely thinking about it made him want to rend and kill them all over again.

His reaction was surprising.

_Nah, probably won't kill her._

The idea of killing to get James' attention lost its savor a long time ago. And if the dumbass had run off, it wasn't like he'd be paying attention anyway.

If he let the girl go once he was done with her, the runt might even appreciate the gesture. Well, he might if he ever remembered who he was, and at over twenty years since he forgot, that was admittedly looking less likely.

He felt the twinge of the collar activating. The fact that they turned it on before thirty minutes had even passed meant they didn't have a clue where to find him.

_Good._

The mental aspect of the collar had never quite worked the way that they intended. Sure, he followed their orders, so they thought they had him under lock and key.

Too bad the lock was faulty and the key was busted.

What they never understood about him or his mutation was that Victor Creed was adaptable. Keep shocking him and sooner or later, the shock would barely even tingle, and it sure as hell wouldn't stop him.

He had been testing the limits of the collar from the minute they slapped it on him after Liberty. It minimally suppressed his mutation and was supposed to prevent him from targeting allies and civilians. They could only keep it active for so long, and once he was out of vicinity of their network, it was little more than an annoying weight at his throat.

Thoughts of taking off the collar didn't even register with the device anymore, and in the beginning that had downed him a few times before he figured ways around it. If it had been some kind of regular metal, he'd have busted out of it years ago. Now that his most likely avenue of cooperation leading to its removal was a bust, there were always alternatives.

He glanced at his passenger as she moaned and shifted in her uneasy sleep. Maybe he could use her to get the Wolverine's attention after all.

If he could get into the runt's good graces for a few minutes, or if that failed, incited the man to fight him, Victor was sure the smaller feral could slice off his little problem with those adamantium claws of his.

With new a plan forming in his mind, Victor took the next deserted road into the mountains.

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**A/N:** I wrote this fic during NaNoWriMo, so on the plus side, there is a rough draft for the vast majority of it. On the not plus side, revising said draft is a nightmare and sometimes chapters, like this one, get hacked to pieces and end up on the shorter end of the spectrum. The next chapter should hopefully make up for it.

**Next time:** Rogue wakes up, and Victor is a firm believer in sticky notes.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

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Marie pushed herself up in her seat, groaning in commiseration with the newest roaring presence in her head.

Several muddled moments later, she more or less boxed up her most recent mental hitchhiker and finally registered her surroundings.

Truck. Woods. Night. _Sabretooth_.

_Passed out_ Sabretooth.

She nudged the man with her gloved hand. He grumbled but did not wake. So, he wasn't dead, though whether that was a good or bad thing remained yet to be determined. She did not take him for a deep sleeper, but if the newest personality taking up her mental real-estate told her anything, it was that he wasn't so much asleep as drained.

Sabretooth had saved her. _Twice_. Or kidnapped her. Maybe both.

What ever happened to her to make her drop like that had to be bad if he'd decided to share his mutation; he'd seen what it did to Logan after only a few seconds. Sabretooth had definitely held on for longer than that.

Blind altruism didn't fit his character, so, he must have a reasonable motive. True, she watched him with Clarice at the carnival several weeks ago; he had been so careful with the little girl even before she decided to intervene, but she had trouble reconciling the Sabretooth that had worked with Magneto with the one now occupying the driver's side of the truck bench.

Not to mention her brain space.

Marie had no idea where he had taken her, and her newest hitchhiker was none too obliging, either.

'Safe.' Was all she could get out of the part of his consciousness she absorbed.

She only hoped it was the same night and that she had not lost a day in between. Rogue must have been out a while because whatever she might have borrowed of his feral senses had already faded.

Her regular old human sense of touch told her she had something stuck to her forehead. She reached up and pulled the square of paper off. The great and terrible Sabretooth apparently kept a stash of readily accessible post it notes.

He'd left her a note, not that she could read it in the dark.

_How oddly considerate_.

Though, for him, sticking paper to a person's forehead and not killing them probably _was_ being considerate.

She did not particularly want to wake him up before she gathered her wits, but she didn't want him waking up and surprising her in the dark either. She searched around until she found a switch. She tapped it on, and the truck cab was bathed in dim light. The man beside her didn't stir.

'Stay put, kid.'

_Of all the officious-_

She crumpled the paper and let it drop to the floorboard.

The woman wondered if all feral mutants felt the need to be overbearingly in charge like that. It didn't really matter because Rogue had zero intention of lingering a moment longer. A glance out the window stayed her impulse to jump out and storm off into the night.

_Common sense is a bitch._

She didn't know where they were, and she lost her communicator somewhere between being chased by soldiers and ending up in the woods with a dangerous feral mutant. She still had her bag, which was better than she could have hoped for, under the circumstances. Her cell was safely tucked away in the dash of her car, now possibly hundreds of miles away. Somehow, she needed to get in touch with the team and let them know what was going on before she got in any more over her head. That looked like it would have to wait until she got back to civilization.

The surroundings were dark, but she could make out a building in front of the car. A cabin? Maybe a ranger station? Whatever it may have been, it seemed abandoned.

Like everything else in her life, the sky decided to not cooperate when she needed it. The night, or perhaps early morning by this point, was overcast and threatening rain.

She cracked the door and heard howling in the distance. With the way her day was going, if she didn't get chased down and attacked by coyotes, then it would probably start pouring before she made any headway back to civilization.

She pulled the door closed and reluctantly set up camp to wait it out until morning.

Marie's stomach grumbled some minutes later as she debated the merits of pushing her companion out and taking his truck.

With a bit of rummaging, she found some jerky in the dash and tore into it, uncannily reminded of that first ill-fated truck ride with Logan.

This was nothing like that, and Sabretooth would be fine if she left him.

_But he didn't leave you_, the more charitable part of her mind insisted.

She was wasting time- valuable time- in finding Logan. Hunger somewhat sated, she realized how tired she still was. This whole borrowed feral metabolism thing sucked.

So far, Sabretooth was keeping her alive for a reason. If she ditched him now, not only would he be pissed and probably hunt her down on principle, but she would never know why he'd brought her with him to begin with.

The choice was ultimately taken out of her hands as at that moment the man groaned and slitted his eyes at her.

"You all healed up, frail?"

"Think so," Marie replied, regarding him warily. "What happened?"

"Mutant soldier. Poison."

Well, that explained why everything had locked up on her and why the effects did not immediately appear in the thick of the fight.

Sabretooth cracked his neck and rubbed a massive hand down his face.

"Shit, frail, you pack a wallop," he groused.

Marie bristled at the man's tone and responded before her brain fully engaged and thought better of it.

"Stop with the fucking 'frail' bullshit," she growled.

Okay, maybe Sabretooth's personality was _not _as faded as she initially thought.

"Having some trouble there, kid?" He sniggered.

_Ugh. Kid. _That was a demotion if she ever heard one. Not that 'frail' was any better.

"No," She insisted stubbornly, ignoring the continued purring taunts of her newest mental roommate, "Now, if you'll get us back to a main road, I'll just be going."

"I don't think so."

Marie's stomach dropped. She started working off one of her gloves, just in case.

"You have some questions I need answered first," he continued.

"What makes you think I'm gonna tell you anything? You just _kidnapped _me," Rogue accused.

It was like flipping a switch. He didn't make any moves against her, –_yet_\- but his entire aura screamed danger.

"I just went through a whole lot of hell to make sure you made it, and as far as I see it, you owe me. Next time, I'll remember to save myself the trouble and let you die."

That was a fair point, and this was probably the only way she would get some explanations of her own.

"What happens once you got your answers?" She hedged.

"You can scurry back to Fuckthatville to your merry little band of dimwits," he paused, considering, "The X-Men don't even know you're gone do they?"

She did not bother answering that particular question; he'd already worked out that truth for himself.

"So, you'll let me go?" She asked.

"I'll let you go," Sabretooth affirmed.

Marie crossed her arms, her back wedged against the door.

"Alive?"

He rolled his eyes. She knew she was pressing her luck and his temper, but she didn't trust him not to be squirrelly when it came to his keeping his word.

"Alive. Since I'm feelin' generous."

His offer seemed almost too good to be true, but he wasn't lying as far as she could tell. Marie's eyes narrowed, lighting on the feral man's metal band. He had not wanted her to stick around before and even tried to scare her off. But the collar was his weak point, she realized. As long as that collar was around his neck, Sabretooth was, if not effectively harmless, then impaired.

_That didn't stop him from killing those soldiers_, her rational mind pointed out. And whoever saddled him with the collar could probably track him by it.

"You didn't want my help, before," the young woman pointed out. "How do I know-"

"If I'd'a wanted you dead- _really_ wanted you dead- you'd be dead, sweets. I wouldn't've even had to lift a hand to do it, neither. Those soldiers would've done it for me."

He let that sink in before continuing.

"Now, I want to know why you were at the Island in the first place."

"I told you." Well, that might be a bit of an overstatement. She could not remember what or how much she had tried to tell him. "Logan's gone, and I'm trying find him."

"If you were lookin' for him there, I'd say you're about a quarter century late."

_How would he know? Unless he knew Logan before, of course. _She filed that tidbit away to explore later.

"I didn't really think he would be _there_. I was retracing his steps," It was the first place Logan went when the professor started trying to help him regain his memories back when he first joined the X-Men, but Sabretooth didn't need to know that. "I'm talking abducted kind of gone."

If she had not been so accustomed to watching for Logan's responses, she would have missed the subtle clenching of Sabretooth's jaw. Rogue idly wondered if it was a feral thing or just an odd quirk they had in common.

"And what makes you so sure he ain't run off? Seems the type."

His tone was oddly bitter.

"He goes off on his own plenty," she shrugged, "That ain't exactly out of character, but this time was different."

_Might as well lay all the cards out on the table._

"I got a lead. I just needed to check things out at that plant first 'cause he's been revisiting places he's been. No one else at mansion is worried, but even Logan has habits. This time doesn't quite match any of the other times he's picked up and left."

Sabretooth gripped the steering wheel.

"'N where's your lead, sweets?"

"Canada," she muttered. Marie knew he heard her, regardless. Everyone else thought she was being, if not outright ridiculous, overcautious.

"Let me get this straight, you wanna go into Canada in the middle of November? And where in your brain is this a good idea? Because I can tell you it sure as fuck isn't."

She felt Sabretooth's borrowed anger simmering at the surface bubble over and become her own.

"I don't care what you think. Logan's been kidnapped. I'm going to find him, and you're just wasting my time."

Heedless of the reasons why she had remained in the car previously, Marie wrenched the door open and stormed toward the cabin. If she were exceptionally lucky, there might even be a pay phone.

Rogue barely made it ten feet before the feral blocked her path.

"Look, I've been real damned patient so far." He laid his hand on her shoulder to keep her in place. She felt the prick of his claws even through her jacket.

Marie swatted the man's touch away. She felt more than heard the low, warning rumblings emanating from her own chest.

He eyed her speculatively before backing off.

"You always this aggressive, kid?"

"No, but _you_ are." She knew her tone was accusatory, but she didn't feel like getting into the intricacies of her mutation.

"And I don't have you fully integrated, yet," she clarified.

The same thing had happened when she absorbed too much of Logan the night she had been so sure that she was going to die at Magneto's hand.

Nowadays, she could get the personality itself under wraps in no time flat, but the tendencies, traits, and _urges_ took much longer to unravel from her own. That was the only other time it had happened to this extent, but apparently, it had not been an isolated case.

"Get in the car," Sabretooth ordered.

"Why?"

She was raring for a fight at this point, even though she knew taking on the mountain of a man in front of her would be beyond stupid. She would end up either hurt, killed, or with an even bigger dose of him than she already had.

"Seems to me like you got a runt to find, and we better get on the road."

That threw her off enough to clear her head of some of the red haze.

"Sabretooth-"

"Stop fucking calling me that. Name's Victor. Victor Creed."

He thrust out his hand, daring her to take it.

Marie was unsure if that was his version of a friendly overture.

"Well, you can call me Rogue," she replied, pushing past him and making her way back to the vehicle. She slammed the door behind her.

He climbed back in on the driver's side.

"Contrary little thing, ain't ya?"

Marie shrugged and stared at his reflection in the window, refusing to look directly at him. He winked and grinned at her, letting her know she was not as slick as she thought.

"This is how it's gonna go down: you're going with me, and we're going to find the runt and bring him back. Understand?"

"No," she huffed. "You said I could go after I answered your questions. I answered your questions."

"I never said _when_. I'll let you go. Later."

It could take her ages to get somewhere to contact the Professor on her own. Her best bet was probably to sit tight and go along with him, at least until she could come up with a better idea. It was a point in Sabretooth's- Victor's- favor that he believed her when she said Logan had been taken. That was something that she would still have to convince the rest of the team of in order to get them moving.

_I can't believe I'm actually considering this._

"But why are you doing this? I don't believe for a second this is out of the goodness of your heart."

Victor tapped a claw on the metal band around his neck.

"Does that mean you're housebroken?"

If he was going to drag her around regardless, Marie sure as hell wasn't going to hold back on the cheek.

She expected some sort of enraged outburst, like earlier when she first brought up the device. She found herself somewhat disappointed when he just chuckled. This mellow Sabretooth was weirding her out.

"I want the damned thing off, brat. And you're going to get the Wolverine to do the honors."

* * *

Her scent was overlaid with his own when her temper rose. It was fucking bizarre, but he _liked _it. The animal rumbled its agreement.

He had never stuck around before to see how the Rogue's mutation played out. Victor knew she drained energy and powers and that those faded over time. He vaguely remembered reading something about personalities in her dossier, but at the time, he'd never intended to let her lay an ungloved finger on him. So, he didn't give it much thought.

But now, he saw the other side of it.

For her to take on her victim's personalities, well, he'd be the first to admit that a little southern chick with an attitude, _his_ attitude, too big for her britches was an entertaining sight.

He wondered what the personality aspect entailed- what all she got from him. Making sure she didn't know things she shouldn't about him was yet another reason to keep her close.

Of course Jimmy would go throw a wrench in things and get himself kidnapped leaving it up to Victor to bail his ass out. Some things never changed despite time and estrangement. His plans had not changed, really. Just altered a bit. He headed for his safe house, crossing the border into Ohio some time after sunrise.

His passenger didn't go back to sleep even as the murky night bled into a drizzly dawn. He wanted to get at least halfway to Minneapolis by night, but steering clear of the main highways made the ride slow as hell, even without the stops the frail would inevitably demand of him.

They would have to stop for gas and food soon enough.

So far, the Rogue made for a decent traveling companion. She seemed to appreciate his preference for quiet and didn't fiddle with the radio after he set it. She stared out the window, and he drove. Just the way he liked it.

There was no news about either of them being wanted, so the Organization was keeping it under wraps. He had no doubt that once they got desperate enough, the story would 'leak', but for now, they were safe enough making their way through the general population.

Out of nowhere, the woman started giggling before covering it with a cough.

"The fuck's so funny, sweets?"

She pulled a bottle of water from her bag and sipped at it before answering.

"Just remembered a documentary I saw on the saber tooth musk deer."

It was some kind of weird reference to him, and they both knew it.

"A _deer_?"

"I was bored," Rogue shrugged.

"I think you need to go the fuck to sleep," he replied.

"You _asked_. I think Clarice was right though. You're like a cat. One of those big predatory ones," she gestured offhandedly.

He felt her eyes scrutinizing him, and damned if her scent wasn't odd again.

"The fuck you starin' at?"

"Nothing. Nothing at all."

"Just spill it. I probably won't gut you."

* * *

_Well, that's reassuring._

"I was just wondering about your tongue. Cats have those little barb things like sand paper."

She really was bored and had too much time to dwell on things that made her stomach clench in dread. Things she could not change at the moment. So, she started thinking up silly things, and her mind went to all sorts of strange places.

The tense atmosphere drifted away as he eased the death grip he seemed to have on the steering wheel.

"Seriously? I could kill you six ways to Sunday, and _that's_ what you wanna know about?'

Before she could blame her inanity on too little sleep and too much stress, Victor had invaded her personal space. His coarse whiskers brushed up against her an instant before Marie felt a long, rough tongue swipe up the side of her neck.

Liquid warmth pooled low in her belly, and she felt the involuntary flush burning across her face and down her throat.

Not like sandpaper, but not smooth either. Somewhere in between. The best adjective that came to mind was 'rough', which suited the feral perfectly.

_That should _not_ be hot. Logan's gone missing. Logan's gone missing. Focus on that. Anything but Vict- Sabretooth. Him._

Victor hadn't even swerved the truck during his brief little foray into misapplied intimidation. The contact had been so brief that she had not even had time to activate her skin. Nor had it activated on its own, as it usually did when she was surprised.

She chanced a glance over at him, her face still burning somewhere between turned on and mortified. The bastard was completely unaffected beyond his self-satisfied, smug, knowing grin.

"Happy now, kid?"

She refused to give him the satisfaction of an answer.

_Kid. Freaking 'kid.'_ If ever there was anything she hated being called that simultaneously got her wayward hormones under control, he'd found it.

* * *

For a brief moment, Rogue smelled tantalizingly like _desire_, and it took everything he had in him not to slam on the brakes and investigate the scent more thoroughly.

But then her posture changed, her scent spiced with ire, and he couldn't figure out exactly what he'd done to piss her off. The woman huddled in on herself and huffed before determinedly glaring out the window.

She refused to look at him, and that suited him fine. It made it easier to reign himself back in.

Victor had some problems of his own. New ones. Lately, he seemed to be making stupid, impulsive decisions.

Sure, he wanted to mess with the kid. Just a little bit. See what she was made of that had his brother so interested in her in the first place. Maybe see if he could provoke her. That wasn't so stupid.

No, the stupid thing was giving into temptation and tasting her. And he never accounted for the fact that she might_ like_ it, however briefly.

As soon as his tongue first registered the sweet-salty taste of her neck, Victor knew he'd made a mistake. But it was in his nature that if he was going to fuck up, damned if he wouldn't fuck up big time. So, he followed through.

For the first time in ages, the animal rose to the surface and pressed against his restraint. Victor felt something click into place as he realized that he might be saddled with this woman for a lot longer then their little joyride, whether either of them wanted it or not.

She moved again, now content to ignore him by staring straight ahead through the windshield. He caught a motion- a glint of silver sparkling out of the corner of his eye registered an instant before he realized what had garnered his attention and agitated him on a baser level. He welcomed the red haze that rose within him, turning his sight full black.

* * *

**Next time:** Marie needs brain bleach, not that she doesn't appreciate the view.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

* * *

Sabretooth was staring at her again.

If she hadn't spent years dealing with Logan, she might have been intimidated. Especially that morning when she first spied the black, fathomless gaze that betrayed his feral nature coming to the forefront.

That_ had_ been unsettling- okay, she had been scared shitless for two-point-five seconds- because she swore the intensity of his seething approached the visible spectrum. But then nothing happened. When nothing continued to happen, and he drove without any further comment, the young woman relaxed. Marginally. She didn't think he had any designs to her detriment at the moment, and really only their approaching-civil banter from before had abruptly stopped.

Which was probably for the best because she did not need to go do something stupid like start making eyes at _Victor Creed_.

At some point his eyes shifted back to their more human, hazy gray, but the furtive glances continued. Along with the occasional low growls, but they weren't the imminently threatening kind, so she didn't pay them much mind.

He was still staring at her when they stopped for lunch, and it was getting on her absolute last nerve. Finally, seated at a small table outside a fast-food joint, she cracked.

"Do I got something on my face, sugar?"

"No," he replied before taking another big bite out his burger.

Of course, he wouldn't just come out with it. Why would her life ever be that easy?

"Then what'd I do to piss you off? You keep glarin' at me, and I don't think I can stand days of tippytoeing around your ego. So, just tell me, and I won't do it again," Marie huffed.

_Okay _that_ growl sounded annoyed. So much for trying to be the bigger person_.

"You've got something I need to see."

He didn't elucidate further, but his palm up, outstretched hand clearly meant she was supposed to hand something over. Regardless of whom she'd absorbed before, Rogue _was not_ a mind reader. She probably would have been glaring balefully at him forever had her inner Creed not decided to pipe up.

"_How 'bout that shiny little collar you got of your own, sweets."_

She furrowed her brow, confused for a moment before cottoning on. She tentatively fingered the chain at her neck, and that did catch his attention. "Logan's tags?"

"Yes, _Logan's_ tags," Creed replied snidely.

_Is _that _what his deal is?_

She kept them safe under her shirt ever since the man disappeared. She knew how much they meant to Logan, and she had given them back to him ages ago, after he kept his promise and came back the first time.

But then they suddenly popped up on her nightstand the day after he went missing. They weren't there until _after_ she left her room that morning, and Logan had been long gone by then. That's when she knew something was amiss. She didn't think he would have just left them, and he did not do that sort of thing by proxy. The feral's latent personality agreed, not that anyone else seemed to think anything of it. In fact, Scott had taken it as evidence that there was nothing to worry about.

It creeped her out to no end. Jubilee sneaking into her room to filch a top was one thing, but someone getting past the security system_ and _the resident telepaths was something else entirely. Needless to say, she hadn't had a decent night's sleep since.

"Take'em off."

"Excuse me?"

"You heard me," Victor growled.

"Yeah, I heard you, but that doesn't mean I'm gonna just hand them over. Give me one good reason."

The growling increased in volume, and she could see his claws lengthening. It was foolish to be so protective over a scrap of metal, but Marie refused to bend on this.

"I don't want your fucking tags, frail. I need to see if there's any scents to pick up."

That was actually a good idea.

"Oh," She replied, immediately more obliging.

"See, if you'd just said that in the first place, this whole conversation could have been avoided." Marie said, handing him the necklace. "We need to work on your people skills. I'll be teachin' a class on 'please, Rogue' and 'thank you, Rogue' all this afternoon."

* * *

Victor ignored the woman's sass and held the warm metal to his nose. As he expected, Rogue's scent clung heavily, and underneath that, he caught the fainter scent of his brother.

It had been a good enough reason to get the tags away from her; he distinctly remembered the damned things nearly hitting him in the face during his last scuffle with Jimmy. So, she couldn't have been in possession of them too long.

That didn't change the fact that when he'd said it, his reasoning had been bullshit. Victor felt jealous pure, and simple. It was stupid; he _knew _it was stupid. He barely even fucking knew the woman, but this was a matter of instinct. The Cat had decided that he was interested, and the tags _rankled_.

Then, a tertiary, elusive scent caught his attention. It was so faint that if he hadn't been at least making the appearance of looking for it, he might have missed it entirely.

Looked like they would actually have someone to track, if Rogue's Canada lead was sending them where he knew it would- straight to the base at Alkali Lake. His grasp on the scent was tenuous and that irritated him, but it was slightly better than tracking cold.

Victor didn't want her to put the Runt's tags back on, but he had too much pride to admit it. He could always make an excuse to keep them; maybe even see if he could get a rise out of her.

Against his own conscious volition, he leaned forward to scent her neck, finding the same barely-there traces he'd found on the tags. The girl sat absolutely still, but he detected no fear in her scent, even when he scraped his teeth against the delicate skin. She was far removed from the frightened teen he'd been hired to track and secure.

"_Creed_."

She'd grown into her backbone, for one.

Victor pulled away abruptly and dropped the tags back around her neck, sparing an admiring glance at the twin pink welts he'd left. Seeing a mark of his own appeased the beast somewhat.

"Got a scent," He told her.

"And?"

She crossed her arms, her jaw set in a stubborn tilt that screamed annoyance. She was faking it, though. At least partially. His nose didn't lie.

"Don't know it, but it's a mutant," Victor idly carved into the table with a claw, "Maybe feral." He shrugged.

"But what would another feral mutant want with Logan?" Rogue asked.

"The fuck should I know?"

He had planned to leave it at that because it really could be anyone. Who knew what fucktard Jimmy had gone and pissed off this time? But the odds that the Wolverine went missing, and a few weeks later the Organization just happened to decide to take out an X-Man and nullify his own contract in one fell swoop were slim, at best. And if _They_ had something to do with it-

"But I'd wager someone wants both you n' me out of the picture. You're a target now, too."

* * *

Creed's disclosure bothered her for the rest of the day. It wasn't hard to figure out why someone would be after _him_. He was wearing a collar, for God's sake, and it sure wasn't the kinky S&amp;M kind. All she had done, on the other hand, was try to find Logan. And accidentally help him kill some soldiers. Okay. That definitely wasn't good and might have landed her on someone's radar, but it wasn't like they hadn't been trying to kill her, too.

The sun dipped toward the horizon, and Marie didn't feel any closer to the 'finding Logan' bit than she had before she got mixed up with Sabretooth. True, "Canada" was as nebulous of a goal as "Alaska" had been once upon a time. She had a rough idea of where the base she was interested should be, but with driving down the back roads of middle America, and Creed actually _obeying the speed limit_ it seemed like they would never get there. The man seemed to be under the impression that they were being actively tracked and was avoiding the interstates at all costs. She was starting to think she would have been better off getting back to New York and appropriating the Blackbird.

"Are we gonna drive through the night? 'Cause if we are I don't wanna ride with you on no sleep. We should trade off. I know how to drive a stick," Marie volunteered.

No need to point out that it was secondhand knowledge.

"I bet you do." He muttered.

Marie's nose scrunched as her newest mental bestie graphically translated the lewd double entendre.

"Ugh. Real charming, Creed. At this rate we'll have to extend your etiquette classes."

"And what makes you think I ain't perfectly happy being a crass motherfucker?"

After spending some time trying to coax whatever she could from the reticent persona in her head, she didn't really believe 'crass' quite fit him. He _acted_ like a boorish bastard, for sure, but Victor Creed definitely wasn't stupid.

"I'll bet you can be the real charmer when you wanna be. And even if you're not, I have tons of experience dealing with fussy toddlers," Marie quipped.

He rolled his eyes and didn't rise to the bait.

At least he was in a better mood than he had been earlier in the day.

They ended up stopping for the night at a little motel just after sunset. Marie was dying for a shower but figured she would let the man still spottily covered in long dried blood have first go of it. Both of them looked like they'd been through the wringer, but out of the two of them, she appeared the less worse for the wear. Plus, she was stiff, exhausted, and pleased to get out of the truck and move about freely for a while.

"Well, I dunno about you, but all this riding around has me starvin' half to death. I'm gonna go grab something. You want anything, Creed?"

The man grunted in something she assumed was assent, based solely off her years of deciphering Loganese. Not that she would ever mistake him for Logan beyond the superficial similarities.

Victor had paid for the room, so the least she could do was pick up supper.

She didn't really like having to share a room with him, but she was too tired to argue against it. She knew she wouldn't sleep deep in a strange bed, anyway. Creed was dangerous, no doubt, but so was she. But really, at this point, it looked like she was in more danger of forgetting herself and jumping the feral's bones than him outright attacking her.

At least there were two beds.

"Right then, I'll be back in a sec," she called to his retreating back.

In reality it took her almost twenty minutes to grab something from the diner across the way. Juggling the food and the key, she managed to make her way inside. About two steps inside, to be precise.

The air in the room was close- contrasting markedly with the cool, fall weather outside- because _someone_ didn't see the need to turn on the fan when he took a shower. But that wasn't what stopped her.

The steam from the bathroom billowed out into the bedroom because the bathroom door was _open_, the tub in her direct line of sight, along with the figure perched on its edge.

Marie was confronted with a _very naked_, very _cut_, freshly showered Sabretooth.

For an instant, she stood speechless because _that _was not the sight she expected to see upon her return. There was a persona or two, _Logan_, in her head that voiced their disgust. But Marie, on the other hand-

_Hot damn, Christmas's come early._

"Oh. My. God," she blurted, rooted to the spot.

Unwillingly, she drew her eyes from his abs up to his face and_ of course_ found him watching her.

Victor smirked, dragging the tiny towel through his hair, heedless of the _very_ unclothed lower portions of his anatomy.

The man had _no shame_.

Marie snapped back to reality.

"Would it kill you to shut the door?!" She screeched, backpedaling back out onto the walkway.

"What's wrong, see somethin' you like?" He called after her.

The old couple she had passed moments before gave her an odd look as she hastily jerked the door shut.

She pressed her back against the door and considered breaking into the truck and sleeping there, instead. She wouldn't; she knew: the promise of a real bed was far too tempting. Rogue would have to suck it up and try not to let the man get to her.

The dangling plastic bag at her arm weighed heavily as she mustered the shattered remains of her dignity and inched the door back open to peek inside.

The bathroom door was blessedly closed, no Victor in sight.

She settled herself on the first bed she came to and flipped channels aimlessly while she ate. He still wasn't out when she finished eating, and she wondered what the hell he was doing in there.

If she had hoped the man would come out clothed, Rogue was sorely disappointed.

She looked_. Of course_ she looked. It was simply reflex. And she got more of an eyeful than she had before. She heard herself let out an undignified squeak.

_Now, that's just embarrassing. _

Marie pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes. Maybe, if she pushed hard enough, she could temporarily blind herself. Not that it would do anything for the visual now branded into her brain. Even if it was a damn nice visual. Objectively.

"_Why_ are you still naked?"

Marie pressed her forefinger and thumb against the bridge of her nose to stave off the impending headache. Plus, it gave her a good excuse to keep her eyes closed for another moment while she pulled herself together.

"I ain't sacrificing my comfort for your stupid sense of propriety. I sleep naked. Get over it."

She stared determinedly at his face. Nowhere below the neckline. Nope.

"But you're not asleep _now_," Marie complained. Apparently, 'fussy toddler' hadn't been too far off the mark. This was some sort of revenge for earlier, she was certain of it.

"Damn, you're right."

Then he stalked much closer than Rogue felt comfortable with. She found herself pressed back against the headboard, with an infuriatingly smug Sabretooth kneeling over her.

"What's wrong darlin'? You're acting awfully flustered."

* * *

The girl acted all embarrassed, and was definitely flushed. _Huh._ Victor wondered at that for an instant, until her scent wormed its way up to him.

_Well I'll be damned._

The girl was hot for him.

Making a snap decision, he grabbed the plastic bag off of the central nightstand before leaning in to whisper in her ear.

"Now, if you'll be a doll and get off my bed so I can eat my dinner, I'd be much obliged."

He nipped at the lobe, unable to resist teasing her a bit more.

"Please, Rogue. And thank you, Rogue," Victor said, leaning back and dangling the bag in emphasis.

Her delicate brow crinkled as she eyed him distrustfully. She was confused.

_Good._

This game was too much fun- definitely the most interesting thing to happen to him in years, and he didn't have any intention of ending it prematurely. But to that end, he needed to get her the hell away from him before he had a chance to rethink that.

"Go take a shower, kid. You stink."

He grinned toothily at her, and she glared at him. Her annoyance wasn't feigned this time.

The woman jumped off the bed and stormed past him. If he didn't know any better he'd think she was more offended at being called 'kid' than being told that her clothes smelled like carnage. If it was a sore subject for her, he was positive Jimmy had something to do with it.

She called him every vile name she could think of under her breath, grabbed her bag, and disappeared into the bathroom. Victor stole the bed and tucked in to his dinner.

His plans for the Rogue had shifted a bit. When he'd taken it upon himself to bring her along she'd been little more than a curiosity and a liability, and now he wanted to get into her pants.

He yawned and figured he might as well turn in for at least a cat nap.

If he didn't have the damned collar, his healing factor would have healed him enough that he wouldn't need to sleep at all for days.

Victor twisted and turned, in effort to get remotely comfortable on the too-small bed. The fact that the bedding smelled like her was a shade from torture, but it helped to mask the irritating scents of the room's previous occupants.

Yes, his plans had shifted, but not changed. He'd help her find his brother, finally get free of the damnable collar, and maybe enjoy her company along the way. The fact that it would rile Jimmy was just an added bonus. For once, Victor fell asleep with a smile on his face.

Marie slung her backpack down on the sink counter, and pulled out her spare clothes. No way she was gonna flounce out in her customary nighttime attire of a pilfered guy's t-shirt and undies in front of _him_.

She wasn't even sure why she was so annoyed. Maybe it was because she had never ever suspected Sabretooth of being a playful tease, much less having a sense of humor. Maybe it was because of the scratches he'd left at the juncture of her neck and shoulder earlier in the day that had _still not gone away_. Every so often, the metal beads of the chain would catch one and-

"Ugh!"

Was she really so hard up for human contact that Sabretooth was looking like a good option for companionship?

At one time, touch- or the inability, rather- would have been a valid excuse, but she had control of her skin now. Most of the time. It was a work in progress, but she could touch people without killing them, if she had a mind to.

One thing was for sure: once this was over, she was going to take a vacation far, far away from annoying, confusing, feral men.

His wet clothes were strung over the towel rack to dry. She washed the stains out of her own as best she could before laying them out beside his.

Marie was woefully underprepared for a trip to anywhere cold. Her backpack held a few changes of clothes, and she had her light jacket but that was it. She knew she should have planned for 'just in case I don't get back to the mansion,' but there was nothing for complaining about it now.

She'd have to convince Creed to stop somewhere so she could get a few things, though that would mean having to actually talk to him. And after whatever it was that had just happened, that conversation would amount to one too many bizarre Sabretooth encounters for one day. She'd do it tomorrow; it wasn't like she was up for going anywhere else tonight, anyway.

He was asleep or feigning sleep when she emerged from her own shower.

Despite her surety that it would take her ages to fall asleep in her jeans, not to mention being a few feet away from a known killer and sworn enemy of the Wolverine, she was out like a light as soon as her head hit the pillow.

The night passed uneventfully, or Marie assumed it did when she woke up before dawn the next morning to a hand at her shoulder and a pair of gray eyes hovering above her.

"Holy shit!" She ineffectively jerked her covers up to her chin in reflex. "We should put bells on that collar of yours."

Sabretooth glowered at her.

"I said your name three times. Get up, we're leaving."

And so she blearily toddled out after him into the chilly November morning.

They had already been on the road for hours when Rogue noticed the black SUV hanging far back behind them. They were being followed, and a glance at Sabretooth confirmed that he knew it as well. The driver kept their distance, and Marie only spied the vehicle from time to time in the rearview.

They were on a lonely stretch of highway with no other cars in sight when Victor swerved onto the shoulder and got out of the truck. No longer under the pretense of remaining unseen, their pursuer floored it.

"What are you doing?!" Marie shouted, wrestling her own seat belt.

"Runnin's the Runt's style, kid. Ain't never been mine," Creed called over his shoulder.

He swaggered out to the middle of the road and waited with arms outstretched and a maniacal grin on his face.

"Note to self: Make friends with people that are less crazy and possibly suicidal."

She finally got the belt free but was too slow and too far away to do anything but watch.

The black SUV plowed into Sabretooth at full speed.

* * *

**A/N:** Sorry for the delay. I had an emergency that derailed my writing plans last week, but it's sorted now. **But far more excitingly:** There is _nearly_ naked Victor fanart for this chapter because when I first had the idea for this fic, I never thought I'd get further than doing drawing or two for it. It can be found on my DeviantArt account (Doodleholic) under the title "Sabretooth Shenanigans." Alternatively, the link is also on my profile (since this site seems to be against links of any sort in the fic itself.)

**Next time:** Chimichanga, Chilaquiles, Enchilada, Maple Syrup?


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

* * *

Marie hated physics. Back when she took it as a class, anyway. It was so dry and boring, and she felt a modicum of shame every time Scott caught her doodling when she was supposed to be taking notes.

Some of it must have stuck, though, because she knew enough of momentum and collisions to know that what she witnessed _shouldn't_ have happened.

Rather than becoming a gruesome grease spot on the highway, Sabretooth stood unharmed as the vehicle flipped up and over him- He'd _punched_ the damned thing, right in the hood.

The Lexus, or really, _ex_-Lexus after Victor got his hands on it, rolled several times before coming stop with a final, creaking crunch.

Finally pulling herself out of her frazzled daze, Marie got out of the truck and joined the smug Sabretooth.

"You idi- I don't _even,_" Marie started. In the span of a minute, she had gone from worried to pissed, and articulating that to the source of both emotions wasn't quite working for her at the moment. She wasn't even sure _why_ she'd been worried about him in the first place.

_Dammit._

"I told you. I don't run."

"Yes, but-" Marie didn't know 'but what' exactly, and was saved from having to articulate it when Victor scented the air and froze.

"What is it? There ain't another one comin', is there?"

"Worse," Victor grimaced. "Gotta be fucking kiddin' me."

Sabretooth shoved her behind him and turned back toward the crashed vehicle as a spray of gunfire sounded from inside of it. The passenger door was blown off and away from the wreckage.

The gunfire ceased only to be replaced by a high-pitched whizzing sound that got closer and closer. A Whoopee cushion, of all things, landed at their feet.

Followed by an honest to God Power Ranger.

If power rangers carried swords and really, really big guns. Sabretooth tensed in front of her, and if Marie didn't know any better, she'd say Victor looked a little green around the gills.

The Power Ranger spoke, in a chipper tenor.

"¡Hola, señores y señoritas!"

In Spanish.

"¡Soy yo! ¡El único y sólo Cinco Muertes! Oh, no, damn, that's Jurrasic Park. Second one. First one was better, anyway. Hold on- ¡Piscina de La Muerte!"

Very, very bad Spanish. She _had_ paid attention in Spanish class. Or someone she absorbed spoke Spanish, one.

_Doesn't really matter, I guess._

"Your name is swimming pool of death?" Marie asked, peering around Victor's bulk.

"Oh, thank the Comic Book Man! You speak English!" The man jumped spryly, dropping the comically over sized gun and aiming to clasp one of Marie's hands in both his own.

Sabretooth growled and grabbed the man by the throat before he got within two feet of them.

Rogue _knew_ anyone that could hop, guns ablazin', out of a thoroughly wrecked car shouldn't be taken lightly but the red-clad man was a complete goofball.

"Is he for real?"

"You don't know the half of it, kid," Victor muttered. "Why the fuck were you following us, Wilson?"

It figured that Creed would know him.

"O' Captain! My Captain!" Came the enthusiastic, albeit garbled, reply.

Victor roughly shoved the man away.

"I've been looking for you for weeks! Anyway, I need a fav-"

"No," Sabretooth growled, his tone brooking no room for argument. But apparently, Mr. Wilson had a death wish.

"C'mon, Vic! It'll be just like old times."

"In that case, _fuck_ no."

Any lingering illusions Marie may have had about Sabretooth being strictly big and bad ass were greatly diminished by his bickering with the Mr. Wilson the Power Ranger. _It was just weird._

Marie rubbed her hands up her arms. Unlike Pennsylvania and New York, it _wasn't_ unseasonably warm here. In fact, it was downright cold.

_Time to expedite this little meeting._

"So you know Victor then, Mr. Wilson?"

"Oh, no, Mr. Wilson was my father. _I'm _Wade. Or Deadpool. And who are you my buxom, southern goddess?"

Wade winked and grinned at her, at least she _thought_ he did. It was hard to tell with the mask.

"Rogue."

Marie got the feeling he would have taken her hand in greeting if a scowling Creed hadn't intercepted him by the throat. Again.

"Okay, okay, I'm not hitting of your girlfriend. Got it. Chill, bro." Then Wade maneuvered in the larger man's grip and slapped Victor on the shoulder in an odd facsimile of camaraderie, "Yeah, we go _way_ back."

As if that were the cue he'd been waiting for, Victor did what Rogue had expected from the start and punched the man. Which was immediately followed by slashing at Wade with his claws.

In a surprising display of dexterity, Deadpool flipped back and away while drawing one of his katana from a scabbard strapped to his back. He waved the weapon around, carelessly.

"Hey, buckarino! Not the suit! I _just _had it dry cleaned."

"Keep taking and I'm gonna cut off your fucking head. And this time it'll be permanent."

Huh, it seemed like every other person was a super healer these days.

"Ho-oh-ld on there Captain Crotchety," Deadpool pointed the katana at Victor's chest, "I come in peace not pieces, and I have some intel you're going to be interested in. Aaaand, the Sundance Kid over there is cold, so, we should move this conversation somewhere warmer and plot moving."

He started walking off in the direction of Victor's truck.

"Well, let's go!" Wade called over his shoulder.

"The fuck do you think you're doing?"

"_You_ busted up my car, Vic. Someone's car. Actually, I borrowed it from this gorgeous blonde when she wasn't looking. But still, my ride. Kablooeyed." As if for emphasis, the ex-Lexus caught fire quite spectacularly. "We should probably get moving before it explodes. I call shotgun!"

"You aren't riding with us!" Victor yelled after the man already buckling himself in.

"We can't just leave him; who knows what he'd tell the cops," Marie reasoned. "But we're wasting time, and it's freezing out here. We can at least hear him out, and if you really wanna, we can ditch him next time we stop."

Marie made her own way toward the truck.

"Can't fucking stand him. The fuck is my life?" Victor grumbled, following suit.

* * *

Marie squeezed into the cab between Wade and Victor. The latter was understandably pissed, and she could tell he blamed her for not letting him leave the mad man. But really it was Victor's own stupid fault for irreparably trashing the other man's ride, though she did think it was a bit strange that the feral gave in so easily.

It was a tight squeeze as neither of them were particularly small men. Well Creed was a giant, and while Deadpool didn't merit giant status, he _was_ tall and fairly stacked.

Rogue felt positively diminutive by comparison, and if she had not been a bit more compact than her traveling companions, well, it would have made for an unpleasant trip. Not that it was likely to be pleasant, anyway.

With their seating arrangement, she would be touching both of them unless she leaned one way or the other. As it was, the gearstick was between he legs, which meant Victor's ginormous arm rested on her thigh when he wasn't actively shifting.

It was awkward. She expected it to be, but Marie sidled up more in Sabretooth's direction anyway –the devil you know and all. The ride was blissfully silent.

For about forty-five seconds. She quickly discovered why Victor had been so keen on leaving Deadpool behind.

"So, you kissed him yet?" Wade nudged her with an elbow.

She felt Victor tense and growl beside her.

"What?" Marie asked at the odd turn in the chatterbox's ramblings.

"Aah, don't worry, it'll definitely happen. Just a word to the less than wise, his tongue is like sandpaper. I should know."

"_What_?" She repeated.

The growling was increasing in volume, and Marie became concerned that the tick under Victor's eye was going to become permanent. She couldn't tell if the man simply had fun nettling Creed or if he was just really that blithely unaware.

"Because I gave him CPR, of course. Or will. I will have had given him CPR some day. Or maybe that was just six-sixteen… Six-one-six. Where are we again? Ten something?"

She doubted that Sabretooth had ever needed CPR, but it was funny mental picture, nonetheless.

"I think if there's tongue involved you're not quite doing it right," Marie replied to the first part of what Wade said, while eyeing the feral beside her speculatively. "But then again…" She trailed off.

Deadpool hmmed in consideration, as Victor flicked on the radio, ending the conversation.

"Oh, this is my jam!"

Wade began singing, loudly.

Victor flicked off the radio.

"Gooood! You're such killjoy, Vic."

An hour later, Marie came to the realization that Wade Wilson did not shut up.

Ever.

Yet with all that talk, he still hadn't elaborated on the intelligence he'd mentioned in order to worm his way into the truck in the first place.

She could feel Victor growing tenser the further they drove along, and so, she absently began rubbing the arm that crossed her lap. Touch like that could get Logan to calm down on occasion, but she had not really put much conscious thought into it. She simply knew if she didn't do _something_, Sabretooth was going to snap and she was going to be in the middle of it.

To her surprise, his tension actually lessened, and Marie swore he started lowly purring.

"We need to get you two kids a room so we can get to the kissy-kissy-bang-"

That was as far as Wade got before ending up with a set of claws raked deeply across his chest and stomach.

In less than a blink, a sword was buried deeply in Victor's side, narrowly missing Marie on its way.

"No fighting in the car, dammit!" Rogue shrieked, "And especially not with me in the _middle_! If you wanna fight, do it somewhere else, or next time, _I'll_ put you _both_ down!"

"Yes, ma'am!" Wade agreed, but then, "_Just_ had it dry cleaned, Vic."

The feral's eyes slid to black as he poised for another attack. Marie placed a hand on his chest. She kept her voice calm and even.

"Hey, now. It's not the time or the place," She had his attention now, and Wade miraculously hushed, so she brought out the big guns and hoped the man wouldn't instigate further.

"_Please_, Victor."

He relented, and thankfully, the ride after that was blissfully silent.

Three hours later, they pulled up to an out of the way gas station slash diner. Marie was used to getting a few stares because of her hair, and she knew Victor was no stranger to attention either if he had his claws out. With the addition of Wade in his bright red, freshly sewn, spandex get-up strolling into the building to use the facilities, she was sure they'd be the talk of the town for weeks.

_So much for keeping a low profile._ She just hoped this pit stop was out of the way enough that no one following them would find it. But if Deadpool could track them, she wasn't too optimistic that would be the case.

Marie got out to stretch for a bit. With her and Victor in the cab, it had been cramped but bearable. With three people, the extended ride was all out misery. At least it was warm.

She shivered, teeth chattering, as she ended her stroll and returned to the truck. Nope, her jacket was definitely more cosmetic than functional.

Victor blocked her path, his face set in grim determination.

"Please move?" She tried, in face of her earlier success.

His expression settled into a grimace. Marie didn't have time to wonder what his problem was before he spoke aloud.

"That the only damn coat you got, kid?"

"Yeah. I wasn't planning on runnin' off to God knows where without checkin' in at the mansion first," Rogue huffed.

"It ain't gonna work."

Marie blew her bangs out of her eyes, barely holding back the 'no shit, Sherlock,' that was on the tip of her tongue. No reason to piss off Mr. Kitty even more when Wade was already doing an exceptional job of it.

Her mad money was dwindling, and a coat would put a good dent in it.

"Yeah, I know. If you could please just stop off at the next big-box store you see, I'll get one. I need to pick up a few other things, anyway."

Victor nodded once, and they got back on the road, soon coming upon the most civilization Marie had seen in what felt like ages.

"Whoo hoo! Food court!" Wade exclaimed as Creed pulled into a large parking lot and found a spot close to the entrance.

"Hey, this isn't-" Marie started to complain.

Of course Victor ignored her, and dragged her along beside him once she crawled out from the truck. Not that she could really complain- she did _not_ want to stand out in the icy wind and argue about how he had brought her to a mall rather than the closest chain super store.

"I'll be wherever the empanadas are!" Wade called to them before striding off.

She half expected Victor to turn tail and escape the mall then, having successfully gotten the other man to wander away on his own.

Instead, he headed off toward the opposite wing from the empanada assassin.

Marie stopped to examine the mall schematic for an instant before Victor realized she wasn't following. He returned to her side and began tugging her along again. Rogue dug in her heels, refusing to be dragged any further.

"I ain't a rag doll, sugar."

He glowered, but backed off a little. He stalked off in the direction he'd started in, expecting her to follow.

"This way."

Marie sighed knowing that was as good as she was going to get from the man.

"Ass," she muttered, but followed along. Within minutes they stood in the entryway of a boutique with, what Rogue reluctantly admitted to herself, were some damned nice coats.

"I'd really rather go to the closest Walmart, y'know. I'm not spendin'-" She picked up the sleeve of the nearest garment and felt faint at the price tag, "THAT on a coat I'm going to wear on one trip for a few days. I'd rather freeze."

Marie crossed her arms, obstinately.

She didn't know if arguing with him was really the best idea, but what was the worst he would do in a crowed public shopping mall? She was tired and hungry and annoyed; that always made a girl a bit reckless.

"Just pick something out, and I'll get it," He said between clenched teeth.

"So I can owe you even more? No thanks, I don't want your charity," Her nose scrunched up in consideration, "Or loan, or whatever. I'm going back to that department store we passed-"

She was already turning away from him as she said it, but her escape to reasonable-price-land was cut short.

"Do _not_ turn your back on me," Sabretooth growled lowly.

No one was paying them any attention. _Guess I was wrong._ He could totally gut her without causing a scene if he were so inclined.

"You're getting a damned coat, you're getting it here, and you _will _wear it. Now the only question is whether you're picking it out or I am."

She huffed but conceded. Arguing with an obstinate feral was like trying to walk a cat. It wasn't worth fighting over, and she could always figure it out later.

Victor immediately negated the first two she pulled out as not being insulated enough. The third met both her and his approval, and they set off the checkout counter.

As she was picking up the bag with her new coat, Marie spied something red out of the corner of her eye.

The spectacle turned out to be Wade running top speed from a troop of pissed off ninjas.

"Stand back cit-I-zens! Oh good, Victor! You're here! We've got some friends that want-"

Before he could finish his statement, the man was stabbed through the chest- a fact to which he took great offense.

"I was _having_ a conversation," Deadpool said.

He whipped out both of his swords and summarily decapitated the man who had stabbed him.

_Definitely_ not low profile.

There was screaming and running and crowd hysteria building up around them. It was good for the three of them; in the confusion, the trio was able to take out the immediate threat and break free from the crowd that scattered in the opposite direction.

The three ran out an emergency exit, finding themselves miraculously alone. Rogue bent to catch her breath as Victor rounded on the other man.

"The fuck Wilson?!"

"Yeeeaaaah, I meant to tell you about that." Marie swore that he winked conspiratorially at her.

"Bringing down the goddamn Hand on us in the middle of-" Sabretooth's rant died off. He sniffed at the air.

The hair at the nape of Marie's neck stood on end as she registered the shadowy presence lunging at Victor. She didn't consider her action before she attacked; years of training and combined instincts urged her into motion as soon as she registered the threat.

But she'd misjudged; there were _two_.

She heard a snap, and then she knew only pain.

* * *

**A/N:** Deadpool wrangling is exhausting. I've also been fiddling with a few different Rogan and Victrie one shots, and even though I try to convince myself otherwise, splitting my attention between them slows everything down. I'm hoping to finish at least one of them soonish, though.

**Next Time:** Plans gets derailed, things get exploded, there are pancakes, and then we are returned to our regularly scheduled programming.


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6**

* * *

Marie did not remember much of the past hour. _Or was it hours? _She did not remember her follow through that more than neutralized the ninja that injured her, nor Creed's sonorous roar and the rampage that followed. She did not remember their frantic escape and truck ride. And she did not remember Victor gently coaxing her out of the truck and walking her into a motel room. She knew these things happened, but they felt distant; separate from herself.

But this was no time to go into shock. _Or stay in shock. Whichever._

She ignored the persistent twinge that had started up in her side every time she breathed. _Ribs_. _Bruised hopefully, but with my luck-_ And on that note, now her arm on that same side was beginning to hurt like hell.

Rogue looked down at her more obvious injury. _Yep, still broken._ It looked like her forearm had a shiny new elbow of its own, bent downward at an improbable angle. But by miracle or mutation, the bones themselves didn't break the skin.

"Hey."

Marie snapped out of her morbid fascination with the limb to take in her feral companion. He approached her slowly, giving her ample time to see what he was doing.

"You back from Mars, yet, kid?" He asked, guiding her by the elbow of her uninjured arm to the room's only chair. It was hard-backed and plastic, and she hated it.

"Think so," she replied.

"I've got to set it, or it won't heal right."

Rogue took a deep breath and nodded. As far as injuries went, a broken arm and bruised ribs were infinitely better than being poisoned had been. She was still conscious, for one.

She heard the crunch and pop before her brain caught up to what happened. She hadn't realized that he meant _right that second_, but for once, she was grateful that Victor didn't pussyfoot around.

It hurt- God, did it hurt- but the bones were back where they were supposed to be.

"Hold that there." Victor said, indicating her arm. "I need to make sure your ribs are still where they're supposed to be."

"How did-"

"You ain't breathin' right. Stop talking."

She felt a warm hand skate up under her shirt, and she shivered at the skin on skin contact.

"I'm sure you'll get pissy if I cut up your shirt, so hold it up so I can see, or I'm gonna."

She reached and took the proffered fabric with her good hand, taking care not to jar the one cradled against her chest.

Victor was surprisingly mindful of his claws; he applied a gentle pressure with the pads of his fingers as he felt his way up her side. For a woman who was still a little overly conscious of others in her personal space despite getting a fair handle on her mutation, this was nothing short of intimate. And injured or not, her thoughts were straying in the _intimate_ direction.

Yeah, no, that 'stop talking' thing wasn't going to work. She needed to distract herself.

"How do you know how to check for broken ribs?" That was innocuous enough.

"Jimmy was fragile and clumsy as hell when he was a kid," he replied absently, focusing in on a swath of freshly discolored skin.

She wanted to ask who Jimmy was, but she hissed instead as he prodded at the area.

Marie thought she heard him mutter a string of curses as he backed off and plopped down on the room's only bed. The structure groaned under his bulk.

She belatedly noticed that Wade was missing.

"Where's Deadpool?"

"Cleaning up that fucking mess, if he knows what's good for him. C'mere."

Marie wanted to argue. It didn't take a genius to figure out that he planned for her to use his healing. But they didn't have the luxury of time for a hospital stay, and who knew if there really were other people coming after them?

"Come. Here."

The change in his tone commanded her attention.

The lighting in the room wasn't the best, but even from her chair she could see that his eyes were solid black. This wasn't Victor she was dealing with at this point.

How long had she been talking to Sabretooth? Surely he'd only _just_ slipped his leash. She would have noticed if Victor had let him out earlier. _Right?_ Given that everything of the past few hours was fuzzy, she couldn't be sure. It didn't matter because while she'd grown fairly comfortable with Victor himself, Sabretooth was still an unknown quantity, and further agitating the creature before her was not on her agenda for the night. Slowly, she made her way to where he was sitting, composing herself along the way.

When Marie got within arm's reach, she abruptly found herself straddling Sabretooth's lap. She winced as her arm was jarred, and the feral whined in apology, gently taking her uninjured hand.

"Turn it on."

Briefly thrown by the whine, she wondered '_turn what on?_', and mentally rolled her eyes at herself. She did as bid and allowed the draw of her mutation to pull sluggishly for several seconds, before her power built, and she lost control. Marie jerked herself away to avoid taking too much and knocking him out. This wasn't the best time to be testing her fine control, and she had only intended to pull just enough to kick-start her healing but ended up with a fair bit more.

She ignored the sharp itch of her bones knitting back together and worked through the newest dose of his surface thoughts. The maelstrom of Sabretooth's anger, affection, and fear momentarily overwhelmed Rogue. And ever impatient, the man in question nipped sharply at the tip of her ear to get her attention.

"I tell you to come, you come. Don't take an attack meant for me again, neither."

"You're _mad _at _me_?" His thoughts were in agreement with the assessment.

"You quit doin' stupid shit, I quit havin' to heal you. Deal?"

Marie nodded, somewhat at a loss. She was unsure of what she had done to gain his protectiveness and loyalty, but in her head, she was feeling it in waves. She wasn't about to voluntarily go fishing around for the answer in his memories, though. Again, Sabretooth drew her back to the present.

"You get injured, you're a liability. Ain't somethin' we got time for, you hear? Now, go to bed."

Despite the energy boost she'd just received, Rogue was exhausted and sleep sounded like an amazing idea even if he was treating her like a recalcitrant child.

"'M just gonna change first, 'kay, sugar? Have you seen my bag?"

At his nod across the room, Marie excused herself to the bathroom.

She had hoped Victor would take his own order and crawl into bed himself, but to her dismay, he was waiting on the other side of the bathroom door.

Buck-assed naked.

_Again._

She had hoped that the night before had been some sort of anomaly to annoy her or get under her skin, though apparently, Sabretooth was even more of an exhibitionist than Victor. But on that note, there was a thought that had been niggling in the back of her mind.

Logan's feral side had always been wild, unpredictable, and minimally vocal. Sabretooth, on the other hand, seemed rational, like something of a more intense version of Victor.

Regardless, she tried her best not to look at him, and ended up _accidentally_ staring at his ass as he sauntered into the bathroom without closing the door. Marie well and truly gave up for the day, and smashed a pillow over her head, muffling a strangled scream.

If the chuckling coming from the bathroom was any indication, Sabretooth had heard it.

"You're gonna suffocate like that."

"Good," Marie groused as she noted his approach. She finally condescended to remove the pillow when the air got too hot to breathe.

"Get the fuck over it kid; it's natural. Now budge over. I ain't sleeping on the floor."

"Then I _will_."

She made to get up, only to be pinned by a solid mass of muscle.

"The fuck you will. You're sleeping right there, even if I have to put on goddamn shorts to make you happy."

His scent had been easy enough to ignore when he was across the room, but with him being up close and personal combined with his borrowed senses, it was starting to drive her crazy in the good kind of way. She_ knew_ he could scent her just as easily. And this was _so_ not the night to analyze or get into her budding lust and or feelings concerning Victor Creed, so, she changed tactics.

"Please, sugar. I promise to stay here." Before she could embarrass herself further, she allowed herself to go limp and let her head fall to the side while averting her eyes.

Satisfied, the feral pulled away and several moments later plopped down next to her.

"There. Covered."

Marie resisted the urge to peek and check. She didn't trust Victor not to be mischievous, much less Sabretooth. The man had the personality of a cat, and she was certain the name was no mistake. Instead, her eyes met his pitch black ones, and for the first time she really wondered if Sabretooth and Victor were as discrete entities as she had previously thought.

* * *

"Yeah, you're not going to find lost ickle Wolviekins there," Deadpool said around a mouth full of eggs.

Wade didn't take off his mask to eat, but rather drew the bottom up over the bridge of his nose, revealing his mottled neck and lower face. The man dug into what happened to be Marie's hash browns rather than his own.

She felt and odd pang of sympathy, and maybe, the red suit wasn't quite as ridiculous as she'd initially thought.

Rogue never did quite figure out where he had stayed the night before, much less where he'd slept. She only knew that she had nearly tripped over him that morning as he played with a Gameboy outside their motel door.

Between the two of them, they managed to coerce Victor into grabbing breakfast at a nearby diner after checking out of the motel. And whether by design, or he simply felt bad about what happened at the mall and sought to make amends, Deadpool was incredibly forthcoming.

"See," He started, his mouth still half full of food, "The problem with that is _that_ base is abandoned. Has been ever since Stryker died four or five years ago."

The name Stryker sounded familiar to Marie, but she could not immediately place it.

Victor seemed to appraise the man in front of them before speaking.

"You do that, then?"

Wade's scarred lips twisted into a horrific approximation of a smile.

"Not to brag or anything, but hell yes! The best part was getting paid to do it!" he returned, exuberantly, "I didn't hang around though. From what I hear, the whole place flooded when the dam burst."

And then, the name clicked. Rogue had heard about Stryker back when Kurt showed up at the institute seeking sanctuary after his forced attack on the president. She hadn't realized the half-forgotten story of that lab would coincide with her lead, but-_ Oh, hell. We're back to square one. _

"Paid?" Victor pressed.

"Now, I wouldn't kiss and tell, Vic."

Marie got the distinct impression that Wade was batting his eyelashes at the feral, but she had honed in on the one pertinent piece of information he divulged. Her Canada lead was a bust. And this whole trip was amounting to a wild goose chase while Logan could be dying, or-

Wade continued on, blithely unaware of her turn in mood.

"Wait, no, I totally would. That's not a good analogy. Speaking of kissing and telling, did you two _do _the _do_? Not the dew mind you, but maybe the fun-due. Fondue? You two?"

Victor's growls were starting to draw attention, but Marie paid little mind as she was on the verge of panic.

He must have taken note because she found herself scooped to his side and his version of a comforting gesture soothed up and down her side.

"Calm the fuck down, darlin', this doesn't change anything."

As if by his will, she found herself doing just that.

She heard Wade sigh dramatically.

"You didn't listen, Young Grasshopper, I said _that _base was a no go. I have coordinates and some intel on _another _one that I was going to charge Vic out the ass for."

Marie's head snapped up. She didn't care what they would have to pay. Saving Logan was worth it, and if she had to pay both Victor and the Professor back for all eternity, she'd do it. Victor's hand stopped and gripped her waist.

"But I'll tell _you_ for free because unlike_ some_ people at this table, _I _have a conscience."

She felt Victor tense further, but he didn't comment.

"I wrote it down somewhere-" Wade made a show of searching his suit's pockets and shrugged. "I think it's still in the truck."

After a quickly finished breakfast, Deadpool merrily lead the way back to their conveyance.

Marie stopped short, which earned her an irritated grumble from the feral shadowing her, until he followed her line of sight. The grumble grew into what she was coming to think of as his 'pissed-off -at-Wilson' growl.

Apparently, he'd intended for Victor to work for the information, as well.

"Is the truck cab filled with pancakes?" Marie asked.

"Four thousand one hundred sixty one and a half of them. And two bottles of maple syrup. I should have planned that better," Deadpool admitted.

"…Goddamnit, Wade." Victor grumbled and stalked off to the truck to try to mitigate the damage.

"If he's excited about that, just wait until he finds the live beaver I stuffed in-"

Deadpool was interrupted by an undignified screech. Who knew that a man with such a deep, growly voice could be so _shrill_?

"Ah, he found it then." Wade nodded, sagely.

Victor reared back and, indeed, there was a fairly large mammal attacking his head. Only-

"Um, Wade?" Rogue ventured.

"Yeah?"

"That's not a beaver."

"No kidding?"

"I _think_…" Marie tilted her head and squinted to get a better look as the flurry of motion made it difficult to be sure. "I think that's a wolverine."

The man beside her tapped his chin, considering.

"No wonder it was so scrappy. Let me tell you it did _not_ want to go in there," Deadpool replied.

She thought to ask where he came by it, and how he managed to acquire enough pancakes to fill up a truck cab, but Rogue was starting to suspect that she was better off not knowing the logistics behind Wade's pranks. And getting him off track would surely lead to her never finding out the location of that base.

Victor yanked off the creature attacking his head and held it by its scruff. He stormed back toward the pair.

"Move, I'm gonna fuckin' kill'im."

"Actually, I think it's time I be going," Deadpool replied reasonably.

He turned to Rogue, and placed a hand on her shoulder. "Until we meet again, Sundance Kid. Later, Vicky!"

Wade slipped something into her hand as he ran for his life, and Victor lobbed the unsuspecting, cantankerous mustelid at him. She looked down and examined the pad of sticky notes Deadpool must have found while filling the truck up with pancakes.

The note on top read, 'You can thank me later.'

Marie saw a dark splotch through the thin paper, but rather than the coordinates she was hoping for on the next page, she flipped it to find a drawing of a truck. And yet another drawing on the next post-it down.

_He turned it into a flipbook,_ she realized incredulously. Rogue allowed the pages to flit through her fingers and watched as the figure of the truck morphed into a fire and a big ball of smoke. The last page simply read, '_BOOM!_'

She barely registered Victor's growl of "Shit." Marie was jerked backward into the man's chest an instant before a great flash of light and heat followed by a thunderous crash exploded through the parking lot.

_Boom,_ indeed.

* * *

**A/N: **I'm sorry that this took foreeevveerrr! I've been doing some serious studying the past two months for a test I'm taking next weekend, and every time I get ready to work on my fics, the spirit is willing, but the brain is fried. I'm hoping to get back to a weekly/every two weeks posting schedule once it's over, and I stop having nightmares about amino acid properties, Michaelis-Menten kinetics, and how bad I am at physics.

**Next Time:** Victor Creed is a car snob.


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7**

* * *

Victor should have seen it coming, but masking the scent of the explosives had been a nice touch. He might have even admired the burning husk behind them if parts of him weren't literally on fire, and if Wilson hadn't been the one to pull it off.

He took mental stock of his injuries and knew this was going to be hell to heal from. He'd been able to shield Rogue completely, which was the one bright side to this shit storm; he wouldn't have been able to heal them both, not with the fucking collar active.

He didn't feel much pain- which was concerning, but probably best for the moment. Victor didn't relish the thought of later when his nerves regenerated. But, for now, they just needed to get the fuck out of BumFuckNowhere, Wisconsin.

"Victor!" Rogue squeaked, taking in the extent of his injuries. He must be a pretty sight to make her blanch like that.

"Don't worry about me, just find us a fucking car!" He growled.

The girl switched from concerned to determined and snapped into action. And that was something he could admire: her cute little ass scurrying away.

Disoriented diners were already filing out into the parking lot to take in the carnage at the far edge where he had parked. They had a precious little time before the police got involved; he already thought that he heard sirens in the distance. Victor didn't plan on hanging around to find out if they were on their way here.

He tried to push himself up and was assaulted by black swimming up in his vision. _Fucking vertigo_.

Victor made it to his feet, leaning heavily on the slightly less demolished vehicle beside theirs. The truck was burning strong, smelling oddly of charred sugar and gasoline. He'd _liked_ that truck, and the next time he saw Wilson, the fucker was going down.

Victor grimaced, and set to work pulling what shrapnel he could out of his back. His vision swam again, and he found that he was dangerously on the edge of doing something frail like passing out.

Before he could, Rogue swung around in the tiniest goddamn car he'd ever seen. She pushed open the passenger door for him, and Victor all but fell into it.

* * *

"A fuckin' Mini Cooper? Seriously?"

"It had keys," she snapped. The man was going to be fine if he felt well enough to complain about their stolen ride. _But he sure doesn't look it._

It would have been a tight squeeze on a good day, but he managed to slam the door shut and broke the seat off its track in order to accommodate his frame by the time Marie peeled out of the parking lot.

"Where?" She asked after a few minutes. They were headed north, and as far as she could tell, no one followed them.

Yet.

"Gotta bolt hole couple hours north. We'll ditch this, and I'll take over from there."

Marie cast Victor a doubtful glance. He looked like hell, beyond hell really- just a shade from passing out. She doubted he'd be conscious in those couple of hours.

"Don't look at me, and watch the fuckin' road."

He was in pain and lashing out, but that didn't mean she needed to put up with it. But then again, he'd shielded her, and after last night she was all kinds of confused about where she stood with the man. So, maybe a bit of pragmatism was in order.

"Got an address, sugar?"

* * *

"Okay, we're gonna try something," Marie said to no one.

Well, she supposed she was saying it to Creed, but he'd been unconscious since shortly after she got him in the car. Marie found the address he gave her easy enough, well, with some consultation from the Creed-in-her-head. Getting in the garage had been trickier with his security, but she'd managed that, too.

The real test was going to be getting him _out_ of the damned car without making his injuries worse.

The majority of his coat and shirt had been incinerated in the blast. What was left had fused into the remains of his skin. In other areas, gaping swaths of muscle glistened in light they were never intended to see. And that didn't even begin to describe the embedded shrapnel.

She eyed the feral warily. The fact was he wasn't healing; at least, not fast enough to suit her. Both times he lent her his mutation, she healed up within moments.

And the latter of those times had been just the night before. Victor had no doubt overtaxed himself, and that collar wasn't doing him any favors.

Rogue took several minutes to center herself and find the place she needed in her head.

_Victor, I need to move you, and I can't do it by myself. I need your strength._

Suddenly, as easy as breathing, she felt the rush of power skitter across her skin. She raced to the passenger side and hefted the feral before the miraculous burst of strength could desert her.

Calling up previously absorbed powers after initial contact had never been something she managed before, despite the Professor's insistence that she give it a try. Though, given that she had absorbed Victor only the night before, the effects could still just be lingering. She could figure that out later. Regardless, she didn't waste any time getting him into the dwelling proper, and into the first bedroom she could find.

Marie laid him out on his front gently and dressed his burns as best she could with a heavy-duty first aid kit pilfered from the adjoining bathroom. Then she moved on to his other, more difficult injuries. The stitching up part was worse than pulling the chunks of metal out, but she could already see improvement by the time she was halfway done tending to him.

At some point his pained, unconscious groans had shifted into a contented purring.

She glanced to his face, startled to find intelligent black eyes staring back at her.

"Hey. Wasn't expecting you to wake up for a while."

He grunted, and she took that as assent to finish up her task.

"I got most of it, but there's some spots where-"

"S'fine," Sabretooth yawned, stretching languidly. _Nope. Not like Wolverine when he's out at all._

Tying off the last stitch and bereft of an excuse to keep touching him, the woman reluctantly drew her gloved hands away. She would have called the urge to touch him an odd compulsion, but they'd crossed some sort of weird, intangible barrier since their misadventure started. Marie would be outright lying if she said she wasn't worried about him. And she would be devastated if-

"Right, then. I'll just let you rest."

He grabbed her wrist as she tried to get up off the bed.

"Stay." It was an order, not a request.

"I don't think that's a good idea," Marie declined. She really should get away from him for a while to get some perspective and figure out, well, everything. Trouble was, she didn't _want_ to.

"Want you here." He drew her captured hand to his face and nuzzled into it.

Okay, that was oddly… cute. Though, she doubted he would appreciate that assessment.

"I ought to find us something to eat," she said, instead. "You're gonna need it."

Logan always ate like a horse when he got injured. She couldn't imagine Victor would be much different, in that respect.

As if sensing her turn in thought, the feral nipped at her fingers. "We can fight later. Lay down." Sabretooth's tone was firm. Rogue was out of excuses, and it didn't seem to be the right time for a stubborn-off.

Agitating him would make the healing just take that much longer.

"Fine. Just for a little while. Then I really am going to find you something to eat."

She didn't know what or how much Victor remembered when his feral side was in control, but Sabretooth liked to _snuggle_. Marie found _that _out the night before. And within five seconds of her gingerly laying down on the far side of the bed, the big cat must have decided that it was _snuggle time _again.

For someone so constantly aware of her skin and what it could do, such prolonged contact, even through clothing, was disconcerting. But here and now she found it… nice.

Victor had not mentioned it that morning, and neither had she. She figured that if it was just his feral side that had formed some sort of attachment and acted on it, then Marie would take what she could and keep her damn trap shut.

* * *

Victor was fucked. Royally fucked.

He woke up healed, hard, and ready with a goddamned angel sleeping next to him, and he couldn't do jack shit about it because he'd picked five minutes ago to grow a fucking conscience.

Her scent was _everywhere_, and in his sleep, he'd gathered her to himself like a damned teddy bear. And this hadn't been the first time. Two days in a row, and it felt so fucking right that it scared the shit out of him. Victor extricated himself slowly, taking care not to wake Rogue. He watched her for a few moments longer before stalking off to shower in the master down the hall.

The man swiped a hand down his face in frustration. It was one thing when he was the one taking care of her, but the other way around was untenable. That was too much like a relationship with emotions and other frail bullshit. Depending on people only got you burned in the long run.

To make matters worse, the Cat fucking _loved_ her, scent marking her every chance he got. And the combination was a headfuck. A dangerous one.

He didn't know what he'd have done if he hadn't caught sight of those damnable tags once again. Seemed even now, Jimmy could knock some sense into him.

Getting attached wasn't what he had signed up for. He hadn't even fucked the girl, and he was already making plans for _after_ they found his dumb assed brother.

He may play a good soldier, but Victor hadn't lived nearly two hundred years as a fucking moron. There wouldn't and couldn't be an _after_. She'd go back to her little goody-goody X-squad, and he'd get back to being on his own and answering to no one. Relying on no one.

That tight feeling in his chest didn't matter because this was the way things were going to be.

If he took her at this point, he knew he'd be too damn selfish to give her up when the time came, even if she grew to hate him for it.

No. Distancing himself now would be better for both of them in the long run. Whether he liked it or not.

* * *

Marie woke to something jabbing her in the side. Funny, she didn't remember falling asleep, but then, it must have been the purring-

She shot up, already aware that the spot next to her was cold. So, Creed was up and about. _Good_, she tried to convince herself.

Judging by the sun, it was late afternoon, and the rumbling in her gut agreed.

She rubbed at her side absently, and a small pad of paper fell out of the coat she was still wearing.

Of course, it was Deadpool's doodle pad- only it landed bottom side up.

The backing had a string of letters and numbers scrawled across it.

A string of numbers and letters that didn't make a lick of sense as far as she was concerned. She picked it up to examine it further.

"Eleven, U-P-B-"

"That's Alberta," said the man from the door.

Apparently, Victor was in super-quiet stealth mode; she felt faintly proud of herself for not jumping. The man was freshly clean, blue eyed, and wearing clothes after his shower, for once. Marie sensed a hard edge from him that she couldn't quite put her finger on.

"Loudmouthed fuck was useful after all," he continued.

"You can read this then?" She got up and thrust the pad into his hands.

He grunted in affirmation.

"But how do you know where that's at without checking?"

"Military grid reference system. It's standard," He replied. And then a moment later, "I'm from there."

Marie was sure her eyebrows shot up comically.

"You. You're Canadian?"

"Yeah, what of it?" He lifted his eyes from the paper to glare at her properly.

"Nothing, nothing," she shrugged.

"Good, then shut the fuck up about it," Victor growled waspishly.

"I thought Canadians were supposed to be polite," Marie quipped, trying not to crack a smile and failing horribly.

"Shut the fuck up, _please_," Victor amended.

Her grin dimmed as he returned the pad of paper. "Looks like we got coordinates, then."

This meant that they were a lot closer to finding Logan than they were yesterday. She should be elated. And she _was_, but it also meant that her tentative arrangement with Victor was drawing to a close.

_Is that why he's so edgy?_ He must have had a similar realization somewhere along the way. She didn't relish the thought of them being enemies again once this was all over, but maybe they didn't _have_ to be.

Creed shifted in front of her, drawing her back to the present. His expression hardened as he spoke.

"I'm going out. Keep this place locked tight. Don't go out, and don't open the door for nobody." He turned and strode out of the room.

_Wait, what?_

She'd saved his ass, stitched him back together, and now he decided to treat her like a fragile, untrustworthy child? Like hell she was going to stand for that.

"I'm going with you." Marie announced when she caught up to him.

He turned back to her, eyes narrowed.

_Or maybe this is why he's edgy. He's in asshole mode._

"No. Gotta ditch the car too. You're staying here."

"_Seriously_? You're probably not totally healed yet, and it will be faster if we both go."

Quicker than she could track, he had her hemmed into the wall. Her gaze dropped to his lips and for a split second, she was sure that Victor was going to close the distance between them and kiss her.

Instead, he backed off and looked away.

"_Seriously_," he mocked, "I'll be back in an hour."

He might be back in an hour, but that didn't mean Rogue planned on being there when he returned.

* * *

**A/N:** So, this is really more like 'Chapter 7: Part One,' but with rewrites and editing, the whole chapter got rather long (As one chapter, it's about twice this length without some of the stuff that still needs to be added to the second half). I figured that you all would prefer having the first part while I tweaked and revised the rest of it, rather than have me hold the whole thing back another week or so.

**Next Time:** Marie laments that Victor missed his calling as a professional hairstylist.


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8**

* * *

"Adamantium extraction is at sixty-eight percent. Subject X is holding steady."

For the first time in days, Logan surfaced.

"What's left?"

He very nearly betrayed his consciousness when he heard _that_ voice. Without moving, the feral scented the air.

The_ Boss_ was here for the first time since he'd had left him to this little science project. The dark goggles they'd slapped on him blocked his sight- like they expected that to impede him or something. If anything, the hi-tech blindfold amplified his other senses. He knew exactly what the fucker smelled and sounded like, even though he'd never seen the man's face.

And Logan was pretty sure the bastard_ knew _that.

The thought of revenge kept him going on days like this, where he was coherent and the Wolverine had been beaten back from the forefront of his consciousness.

Perversely, despite still healing wounds on his thigh, Logan felt better than he had in weeks. It seemed the more they flayed him open the better he felt; the faster he healed.

He was under no illusions that they weren't planning something awful once they finished the slow, arduous process of stripping every ounce of metal from his body. He planned to escape before then- as long as they didn't figure out the extent of how quickly his healing was adjusting to the drugs they were using to keep him half-aware and docile.

He just needed a few more days and a little more of the metal out. A week would be better, but it was hard to judge the time here, and a week was probably pushing his window of escape.

It wasn't much hope, but it was what he had.

"Cranium, upper torso, spine, left leg below the knee. Claws have been unaltered as per your request."

"Initiate cranial extraction. Begin his conditioning while you finish up the rest."

_Conditioning…_

"Yes, sir."

_Well, shit_. Logan needed a bright damn idea pretty damn quick.

* * *

"Oh my God, I am an idiot_. Of course_…"

Giving Marie an hour to stew was a bad idea. A monumentally bad idea.

Exactly fifty-one minutes after Victor left, the young woman sipped her soda at a nice cafe down the street. She still had nine minutes to take the five-minute walk back to his secret hideout, assuming the man was punctual.

Rogue had contemplated leaving entirely, but the feral really would be her best bet at finding Logan if he really was in Canada.

There was also the fact that she didn't really _want_ to leave him behind, and _that_ made her feel guilty; Creed shouldn't be a priority in any sense.

Regardless, Marie planned on heading back to his super-duper-bad-guy lair in twenty.

No reason to rush her meal, after all.

Sure, making it obvious that she defied his _orders_ was spiteful, and petty, and definitely stupid, but she was just mad enough to not care. She could have blamed her impulse control, or lack thereof, on her absorption of him, but that wouldn't be quite fair. Fact was she didn't take kindly to being ordered about and was going to make damn sure he knew it.

Fifteen minutes later, a hulking shadow blocked out the dying, late afternoon light.

Then again, there had always been the possibility that he'd come looking for her before she returned.

And after the epiphany she'd had in the past hour, she rather expected it. Though, she thought he would have taken a bit longer since kitties weren't known to play fetch. _Guess he gets points for efficiency._

Luck of the draw meant Sabretooth was out, which was just as well, if her suspicions were correct. He might actually be the more tractable side of the man.

"Hey, sugar," Marie greeted.

"Let's go," Sabretooth rumbled.

The young woman took one final sip of her drink. Then she stood and tossed her tray, ignoring him as she sauntered by.

Sabretooth grabbed her by the arm and growled. Rogue huffed._ Big, mean kitty wants to be in control. Fine. _She'd let him for now. She wasn't interested in causing a scene.

"Lead the way."

He tucked her in close, and they walked back in silence.

She had no illusions that it would stay that way. He was a caged storm waiting to burst free once they got free of the public eye, and she wasn't feeling too inclined toward a quiet and peaceful chat, either. Marie idly wondered which of his natures she'd be arguing with.

She didn't regret going on her little jaunt; she had even worn a baseball cap she found to cover her unique hair. No, she didn't regret it, but Marie felt vaguely grateful when they got back in the house.

Color her surprised when he didn't immediately start shouting.

"I am not in a good mood. So you're going to explain why in the fuck you thought it was a good idea to go against my direct order."

Marie crossed her arms and cocked a hip.

"Last I checked you weren't the boss of me," she replied, slightly louder than necessary. "Plus, I was hungry and if you haven't noticed, you don't keep your pantry well stocked."

He clenched and unclenched his fists, his eyes flashing before the black receded to reveal grayish blue.

Marie wasn't necessarily sure Victor being in control was the best outcome for this little tête-à-tête.

"What the fuck did I tell you about doing stupid shit?!"

_Ah. There's the shouting._

Victor had braced himself against an overstuffed armchair, gripping the leather, his claws already scoring into the material.

"You can't dictate where I go, Victor. A few days ago, you'd have been ecstatic to see the back of me."

His nostrils flared and Marie went back over what she'd said in her head and mentally rolled her eyes. _Perv._

She heard the chair rip, but he stayed in place.

"This ain't a few days ago. We're in this together, now. No running off, understand?"

It was a reasonable request, but Rogue was feeling everything other than reasonable.

"No. You've been keeping things from me, and I think I deserve some answers. Maybe then, I'll consider it."

He growled in warning. She continued anyway.

"What's in this for you Creed? And don't feed me some bullshit about your collar. Sure you want it off, but that's not the real '_why_' behind why you're helping me, is it?"

The poor chair was going to need reupholstered after he got his claws in it. Then the thing creaked, and Marie heard a snap. Scratch that; it was going to need to be replaced.

"He's your brother isn't he?"

_Yep, definitely replaced. _

"How do you figure that?"

He cocked his brows in a way that was different yet uncannily similar to the way Logan tilted the one. Now that she had considered the possibility, their relation seemed obvious.

_Feral, claws, generally grumpy, Canadian, _she mentally ticked off. Well, that last one wasn't a hundred percent, but Logan _thought_ he was Canadian, which was good enough for her.

"It's the only thing that makes sense." She squinted in his direction, "You can't be his father or the other way around. You both look to be about the same age."

Abruptly, Creed barked a laugh and swiped a hand down his face.

"And just how old do you think that is, girlie?"

"I don't know. Late thirties. Early forties, maybe," Never mind the fact that Logan had not apparently aged in the twenty years he remembered, "Or maybe you could be Wolvie-dad," Marie shrugged, "But am I right?"

His grin dropped, and the man regarded her intently. Shrewdly.

"You're not going to fucking let it go, are you?"

Well, he wasn't the only one that could be shrewd.

"I've been told that I'm tenacious. And that was before I got a dose or two of _you_ in me."

Suddenly, Rogue found herself flat on her back and staring into a pair of black eyes.

She reached up and smoothed a hand across his cheek.

"Am I right, sugar?"

"Half," he ground out, before dipping his head down to nuzzle against her neck in what was becoming an intimately familiar gesture.

Marie scrunched up her nose.

"So, I'm half right?"

He grumbled into her neck. Heavy and warm above her, something hard grinding against her thigh.

_Oh, dang. Focus. Focus. Fooocus. _She repeated her mantra. It was hard when Sabretooth seemed to be lazily intent on… _foreplay_?

"I didn't quite catch that, shug."

He grumbled again and reluctantly retreated, pulling Logan's tags out from under her top as he went.

"Half-brother," Sabretooth repeated as he ran a thumb across the metal.

Marie scarcely breathed as he continued.

"We were a team 'til he decided he didn't like what we were doin' and left me for good. Now, he doesn't remember shit."

Sabretooth dropped the metal pendant and plunked down on the ground beside her as she sat up.

This was not how she expected their conversation to go.

Regardless of whatever had happened between Victor and Logan, it was clear that Victor still _cared_. For him, caring was a big deal.

_Aw hell._ And when she wasn't here when he returned, he must have thought-

"I wasn't ditching you, you know."

His jaw clenched for a moment before it relaxed, and he tugged her into his lap. She let him.

"I know."

"I needed to get out to clear my head, and I really was hun-" A clawed hand grazed against her clothed breast. Marie's breath caught, "gry."

He rumbled, and inhaled deeply, dark eyes regarding her. No shrewdness this time.

"Should'a waited for me."

The asshole was still trying to distract her.

"Yeah, well, you should have taken me with you."

"Wasn't safe."

He tugged at a pale forelock of her hair and continued before she could retort. "C'mon, we need to hide this."

Sabretooth pulled them both up and led her to one of the spacious bathrooms that Rogue had not taken the time to explore. She had a sinking feeling that she knew where this was going. He tossed a bag to her, and Marie caught it by reflex.

The young woman peeked inside.

_Yep. Hair dye. Great. _She must have made a sour face.

"It's temporary. No need for nothin' permanent," he gripped the same lock of hair as before and stroked it, "Just need to get us across the border."

Marie nodded. "So this is the plan, then? What about passports? And you aren't exactly inconspicuous, either, y'know. "

"Taken care of. We'll go through during peak hours tomorrow. Easy."

She sighed and glared at the bag in her hand.

"All right then. I'll just-"

Sabretooth cut her off, "I'll do it."

She knew the crap smelled horrible enough to her senses, much less his, but he'd already plucked the bag from her hands and started fiddling with the bottle.

_Fine, let him suffer a little bit._ Marie felt vaguely miffed that he only let her in on the plan after the fact. She could be vindictive, she knew. And lord knows her mama always told her she had a mean streak a mile wide and held a grudge like no other.

Her thoughts ceased as a set of claws began to gently massage the mixture into her hair.

Marie let out a startled moan as tingles of electricity shot all the way down her spine to settle pleasantly in her core. _Shit._

"Fuck," she heard him mutter.

He finished working the dye in record time, all the while she was desperately trying to think of anything other than his hands in her hair. Or on her at all. In the end he tersely relayed to 'let it sit then wash that shit out,' before stomping off and slamming the door behind him. She couldn't pinpoint when the switch had happened, but that was definitely Victor in control at the end.

About twenty minutes later when the ammonia was getting too strong even for her duller senses, and she was bored out of her skull of sitting on the closed toilet and analyzing how Creed may or may not feel about her, Marie climbed into the shower.

When she got out, she belatedly realized that there were no towels in the bathroom. Anywhere.

"Crap."

There was no way she was putting her dirty clothes back on. It was bad enough that she had slept in them when they still smelled like smoke.

Most of her clothing hadn't survived the explosion, just her new coat and the pile in the floor. So, what she was going to wear after the elusive towel or pilfered robe was anyone's guess. She hoped he had a washing machine stashed somewhere.

Rogue knocked from her side of the bathroom door.

"Victor! You out there?"

When she received no reply, she assumed he had vacated the house to get away from the smell. _Which_ smell was still up for debate.

Cracking the door, no temperamental ferals seemed to be lying in wait on the other side. Pushing the wooden barrier fully open, Rogue thought it would be safe to cross the room to inspect the dressers and pray that in one of them lived a towel.

Just as she decided this, Victor walked into the bedroom.

Marie shrieked and dove back into the bathroom, slamming the door behind her.

* * *

Victor's vision was met with skin. Lots and lots of skin, combined with an almost irresistible urge to break down the barrier that now separated him from that skin.

The fucking annoying part was that it was all _him;_ his more feral urges were strangely silent on the matter.

"Nice rack!" He shouted to keep up appearances of being a crass motherfucker. She should expect it of him, or something.

He could not let the girl know how much a few targeted comments and his subsequent complete loss of control to his instinctual side had shaken him. Then, all of a sudden, the animal had pulled back and let him have the reigns when she went and fucking moaned while he had his hands in her hair. If it hadn't been for the burn of ammonia in his eyes…

After a near half-decade of relative silence from his instinctual side, it had reared awake and constantly vied for control and influence ever since he picked her up. But right now, it was almost like they were one, again.

And that made Victor instantly suspicious. He didn't give up. No part of him did. Fighting his instincts might be ultimately futile, but it was almost like he was… waiting for something. The fact that Victor couldn't pry the what and the why out of the cat made him wary. _Definitely up to something_.

If he were smart, he would leave the towel he'd rounded up from the master bath and ignore her until morning.

Victor banged on the door.

"Kid, I brought you a towel."

Her heard her feminine growl through the wall before an arm shot out, grabbing the proffered cloth. She wasn't quite fast enough to keep him from glimpsing her in the mirror. His earlier assessment stood; she had a nice rack, and a cute ass, too.

He raked a hand through his hair.

"Goddammit."

* * *

That night Victor should have gotten the first peaceful sleep he'd had in months. His own bed, his own room, no one else _breathing_ near him.

Instead, he found himself up and patrolling, checking and rechecking the perimeter.

The first time he'd strayed to the room she was in, it was for the perfectly legitimate reason of dumping off some shit for her to wear. He'd nearly lost it when she pranced through the kitchen wearing his boxers and shirt on her way to the washer.

So, yeah, he'd gone and bought some clothes for her that wouldn't drive him batshit crazy.

The second time, he heard something outside her room and needed to be around because she slept like the dead and would be just that before she ever managed to wake up to fight anything.

Turned out it was nothing, but he still did not sleep when he returned to his own bed.

Barely a week, and his instincts were screaming at him for not sleeping in the same room with her.

By four a.m. he'd convinced himself that the woman was hung up on Jimmy and he was a fool for letting her get to him at all. She was wearing his tags for christsakes. Never took the damned things off.

_Mine_.

The insidious thought struck him as he was dosing in front of her door like some sort of neglected pet.

"Fuck this shit."

She may or may not be Jimmy's but she sure wasn't _his_.

_Not yet._

Tomorrow was going to be _hell_.

* * *

"What's our story?" Marie asked from the passenger seat of their newest ride. She caught her reflection in the side view mirror, still unused to her uniform chestnut locks.

With the pair of eyeglasses Victor had slipped on as they approached the Canadian border, his own transformation from 'dangerous, obvious mutant' to 'yuppie' was complete.

He'd somehow managed to trim his talons down to 'not immediately noticeable' levels. From sweater vest to button down to scandalously tight jeans, the whole picture was utterly incongruous with everything she had come to expect from the man. She even doubted that any of the X-Men would have immediately picked him out on the street.

_But that's the point, isn't it?_

The most disturbing part was that her initial reaction wasn't, 'Golly gee, isn't nerdy Creed, hilarious? I should get pictures for blackmail.' But, instead, 'Damn, chica, jump his bones and save the pictures for the lonely winter nights ahead.'

He cut his eyes from the road to study her before returning his gaze steadfastly ahead. "Whatever's easiest. Different last names on the ID's. So, meet your new fiancé."

He'd been acting weird since the night before. Sabretooth might like her and want to get into her pants, but Victor was utterly uninterested, even after she had accidentally flashed him. The reminder of that blast of mortification cooled her jets real fast.

"I always thought that if I had to a fake fiancé while on a covert mission to rescue my best friend, I'd get a ring out of it," she groused, trying vainly to reestablish their previous camaraderie.

He pulled a small jewelry box out of his vest pocket and dropped it into her lap. Marie opened it. _Well damn, if he isn't a Boy Scout, after all._

"This is a ring. An engagement ring," she replied blankly. _An engagement ring with a very large rock_. She tilted it to catch the morning light. And then, a moment later, "Holy shit, Victor, is this _real_?"

He stared down the road, not even sparing her a glance.

"Yeah."

She never got the chance to question it further as they pulled up to the border control.

Passports and driver's licenses were flashed. An unusually congenial Victor answered a few questions, and she barely said two words before they were waved through.

"Well, _that _was anticlimactic," Rogue announced several miles down the road. She twiddled with the ring on her finger. It would probably be better to fork it back over sooner rather than later.

She moved to do just that when she noted Victor eying the road behind them. She followed his gaze to spy a black Lexus, and she was struck with a readily identifiable sense of déjà vu.

"Don't get too bummed yet, kid. Looks like we got company."

* * *

**A/N: **I intended for this to be up three weeks ago. I've had a very busy and unusual three weeks. Unfortunately the next chapter might take a bit; it still needs a fair amount of work.

**Next Time:** People are met. Things. They happen. LASER EYES. Then, UST because Victor's suffering in that area brings me great joy.


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter 9**

* * *

"Get back in the car."

Rogue slammed the door shut behind her.

"No."

When their pursuer took no immediate action beyond following them, Victor had chosen a lesser-traveled road and pulled to a stop when he got good and ready.

Which Rogue took as her cue to be a pain in his ass.

"Then, stay here."

"Like hell," the woman replied, while ripping off her gloves.

If anything, his girl was determined. Short of him hamstringing her, she wasn't going to stay put.

"Don't get in my fucking way, and don't do anything stupid." Victor said, knowing that trying to deter the woman was a moot point.

"Back at ya, sugar."

_Smart ass._

They didn't have to wait long. The black Lexus eased onto the wide, snow-laden shoulder, a blonde frail immediately hopping out once it stopped.

She wasn't a mutant, but didn't smell plain human either- in fact she did not quite smell like anything he'd ever scented or tracked before. He didn't know where they'd dug this chick up from, and he didn't really give two shits.

Taking a quick assessment of them both, the blonde started yammering.

"I'm Captain Danvers with the-"

"Yeah, yeah, you can skip the spiel. We're on a tight schedule here, so let's just get this over with."

The woman's steely eyes narrowed, focused on him. Then she nodded, as though she hardly expected anything different.

"I'm supposed to give you a message."

"Le'mme guess. 'Come quietly. All will be forgiven. Asset to the cause.'" Creed ticked off on his fingers. "Ain't my first rodeo, sweets. You think those lines are gonna work, you got the wrong mutant."

"Close. You _and _the girl," she clarified.

"Hmm," he glanced at Rogue and nodded to himself. "In that case, then, I'll go with a good ol' 'fuck, no'."

"The hard way then." The woman said, sliding into a defensive stance.

"Don't do it any other way, frail. Ladies first, kid's been riding me about my manners 'n all," he grinned, nastily, a flash of sharp teeth.

The woman lunged and landed a punch to his sternum, he heard the crack even as his flesh and bone began to mend.

_Damn._ No, definitely not human.

He turned his backward momentum into a controlled slide, his claws extending and gouging the earth and asphalt. Maybe this would be a few minutes of entertainment, after all.

Victor flicked the snow and detritus off his claws and charged, intending to rend the bitch and be done with it.

He tore the material that made up her suit all right but watched his claws skitter uselessly off of Danvers' skin.

_Well, that's a new one_.

Quickly recovering, he reared back with a punch of his own that sent her flying.

_Literally._

When she landed again, he lunged.

His usual methods wouldn't work on her, especially with the collar slowing him down. He needed time to figure out her weakness. He'd be damned if he went down without a fight, in any case.

As he was judging his next opening, he watched Rogue approach the woman out of the corner of his eye.

But the blonde was good; she saw her too, and threw him back to deal with her. Danvers turned defensively toward Rogue.

"Stand down," she warned, "You haven't done anything yet, and it will be better for you if you stay out of this."

The brunette shook her head, taking a tentative step forward. "I'm sorry."

Victor watched closely as the blonde changed tactics.

"Do you even know what he _is_? What he's _done_?"

Rogue's jaw took on that stubborn tilt he'd learned meant there would be hell to pay. Funny to see it directed at someone else for once.

He knew what she intended; she just needed an opening.

Victor rushed the blonde from behind, this time grabbing and hoisting her off the ground. In the meanwhile, Rogue had shot forward as well, making quick work of grabbing at Danver's face before the woman could break his hold with her preternatural strength.

The woman looked confused for an instant at Marie's gentle touch, then went rigid, sucking in a gasping breath as the drain started.

And then something went terribly, horribly wrong.

Rogue started gasping for air herself and began convulsing macabrely as her eyes rolled back into her head. Sabretooth dropped the frail and wrenched the two apart.

It had the desired effect of stopping his girl's seizures, but his relief was short-lived.

A blaze of red light shot out of her eyes, scorching an impressive swath of land, road, and forest that had very nearly included Victor himself.

"_Shit."_

As the blonde hit the ground, Rogue grabbed her head, clenching her eyes shut. From his position several paces away, he watched as clouds gathered, darkening the sky. Cracks of lightning shot down all around them.

Behind him, the truck and the frail's SUV creaked and shook, slowly inching off the ground.

"Rogue!"

He closed the distance between them and grabbed her, pulling her to himself.

"Come on, darlin', all this isn't you. I need you to focus."

His efforts were rewarded with a set of bony claws to the thigh. Sabretooth cursed and released her, allowing her to slither out of his arms and adopt a defensive crouch.

The next time she opened her eyes, familiar abyssal black ones warily stared back at him.

Victor cracked a toothy grin.

"That ain't you either, but I'm flattered."

Her own lips drew up in a snarl, showing off an impressive set of canines.

On some level, her mind had narrowed down the people she needed to focus on. This was something he could work with.

"You're not going to be any use in finding Logan like this. Put those away, _Marie_." For a moment more she focused on him- dark eyes lighting with recognition. Then, her brow furrowed in confusion and she pitched forward, hyperventilating.

He scooped her up before she hit the ground.

"Can't. Breathe."

"Easy, now. I've got you," He maneuvered them to the cold asphalt, bracing her back against his chest, taking deep even breaths, "In and out, nice and slow."

Victor even held back the lewd comment on the tip of his tongue, since she was in no state to appreciate it. And she'd said he didn't have manners.

As she calmed, the storm dissipated, while the vehicles settled back on the ground with a heavy creak. Belatedly, the bone claws retracted and her breathing slowed and deepened as Rogue flirted with unconsciousness.

The invulnerable bitch was knocked out or dead; he didn't bother to check. They'd wasted enough time already. And if the cell phone-buzz coming from her pocket was any indication, her back up wouldn't be long off in coming.

This was a fucking mess, and he needed to get them moving.

Rogue's scent danced around wildly, integrating a new tang that set his teeth on edge. Then it started to ease off before reasserting itself. There was almost a _feral _quality to it.

The kid's eyes fluttered a few times, as he carried her. That might be a good sign, but the rest sure as hell wasn't.

"Victor?"

She still had fangs, for one.

"Just getting you in the truck, darlin'."

She nodded, blearily, against his chest.

And her eyes were green. Fucking _green_, rather than the warm, rich brown to which he'd grown accustomed.

He got her situated, but she grabbed his sleeve before he could close the door.

"_Kree_," she slurred with urgency.

"Don't worry, kid. I'm taking you somewhere safe."

He extricated himself, and moments later they were off.

In her semiconscious state, Rogue shivered, making various discontented little noises. _Annoyingly distracting_ little noises that were rousing his instincts. They didn't have time for the Cat to do a full work up, so, Victor did the next best thing he could think of to put them both at ease: he shrugged off his overcoat and draped it across her.

The woman burrowed into it gratefully, inhaling his scent and slipping into a deep sleep. After that, she didn't stir during the entire fourteen-hour drive.

It was four a.m. before those uncanny green eyes popped open again.

* * *

She roused slowly, first only aware of the pounding in her brain.

Something soft and warm brushed against her head and Marie swatted it away.

But it went right back to annoying her. She mustered the wherewithal to open her eyes and glare at the offender.

She was greeted with a hulking figure leaned over her with a hand against her forehead, his serious face scant inches from her own

"Holy crap!" She squeaked. Recognition of her companion, if not her surroundings, registered, and she was momentarily distracted from the ache in her head.

Then again, when waking up around Victor Creed, a massive headache was a matter of course.

"You could warn a body!" She groused.

"Your scent's off." He announced unceremoniously. "But the fever's gone."

"Oh-kay?"

Creed's posture was tense, agitated. Those keen eyes of his taking in every detail- like she was poised to attack rather than laid up in bed feeling like crap. _Again_.

"How you feelin'?"

That only served to remind her of the vicious headache she had going on. Rogue brought a hand to her forehead and groaned.

"Awful. This is getting ridiculous," she complained, pushing herself into a sitting position.

"No shit."

Victor retreated to a large, worn leather armchair near the wall. He still looked tense, but agitation had eased a sliver- he apparently came to the conclusion that she wasn't going to hop out of the bed and maul him.

_As if._ She felt weak and achy like she was coming back from the flu.

"Where are we, anyway?"

"Alberta. My place," he rumbled.

Alberta? That meant they were on the last leg of their journey, only a matter of hours away from wherever Logan was being held.

But they'd only just crossed into Saskatchewan before Victor had stopped-

"How long have I been out? What happened?"

"Since yesterday. You don't _remember_?"

There were flashes, but trying to think about it just made her headache _worse_.

"Sorta. I know that I must have absorbed Carol, but…" There was just so _much_, and she was forgetting something important. Whatever the thought was, it slithered out of her mental grasp to the edges of her consciousness.

"_Carol_? The blonde bitch?"

"She's not a bitch, Creed. She was- well," Rogue gave up defending her character, for the moment. She only hoped that she hadn't harmed the woman irrevocably. She changed the subject. "Just one day without either of us passing out, is that so much to ask?"

"Apparently," Victor muttered. He was still watching her intently, and it was getting on her last nerve.

"Do you _mind_?"

He cracked an infuriatingly smug grin, his first non-defensive expression since she'd awoken.

"Not a damn bit. You're actin' like you got a hangover there, darlin'."

She moved to get off the bed, give him a piece of her mind, and go somewhere he wasn't when she realized something important.

"Did you change my _clothes_?!"

Even in the curtain-filtered daylight, she caught his exasperated glare.

"You not remember pitching a bitch 'bout five hours ago?"

"No." She didn't remember waking up before now, at all. But then, he'd said something about a fever-

"Well, it was the only thing that would shut you the hell up." He growled, defensively.

She felt her face grow hot. She was accumulating quite the collection of Sabretooth bed-time chic. The massive cotton shirt he'd dressed her in was comfortable, at least.

_Yeah, he's not getting this one back._

Marie endeavored not to let the lost time bother her. It had happened once before after she absorbed Magneto and Logan in rapid succession. Though, she'd nearly died _that _time.

She tried to relax, but felt far too anxious- uncomfortable in her own skin. And it was not just because Creed seemed content to stare at her from the comfort of his big old chair.

It was her mouth, she realized. Her teeth felt weird. She ran her tongue across a sharp incisor.

* * *

"They're _green_."

Victor leaned against the bedpost as Rogue checked out her reflection in the dresser mirror.

Why couldn't anything ever be fucking easy?

Pick up the girl, save his dumb ass brother, get himself free of the metal band around his neck, and wash his hands of both of them.

He was currently ruing his decision to ever plop her in his truck, much less bring her _here_, _to his most private sanctuary, _of all places. If he had just left her in the beginning, he wouldn't be standing there useless and she would be… _dead_.

_Dammit._

"Don't you pick up powers and traits or some shit?" He'd known in his gut that this wasn't normal. Worry was a gnawing, unfamiliar sensation that bordered on painful, and he _hated_ it.

"_Green_, Creed. She didn't even have green eyes!"

Well that was a little tidbit he hadn't paid the slightest bit of attention to. What he _did_ pay attention to was the way Rogues nipples had pebbled enticingly under _his_ shirt.

Hey, she might not be in a fit state right yet, and he might be a bit distracted on the mental front, but he wasn't _blind_.

He'd let the fire go out, in his reluctance to leave her alone and undefended. Now that she was up and coherent, he needed to get the hell out of there before he did something stupid, like fuck her up against that dresser, concerns about her health and new twist to her mutation, or no.

He pushed off his perch.

"I'm gonna go chop some wood. You. Eat something. We'll figure this shit out later."

* * *

He vented his frustration at himself and Rogue on a number of unsuspecting trees toward the edge of his property. If nothing else, they'd have plenty of wood for the heater.

There was a storm headed up toward them, and they'd likely be snowed in for a day or two, since Jimmy had the bright idea to be captured and carted off to Canada at the onset of _winter_. And the fucking kid had decided to drag him into it to chase after the runt.

At the thought of Rogue, the uneasy feeling clenched in his chest, again.

He didn't think they'd be able to figure out what had happened with her mutation without her little X-Squad, and that was something they just didn't have time for.

Whether she'd realized it or not, Rogue had been healing and regaining her strength during their conversation in his bedroom. Calling up old absorptions, like his healing, could be as simple as a latent aspect of her mutation becoming active. The fangs being an obvious side effect. If that was the case it'd be something she would have to learn to control in time. Nothing to worry about.

He swiped a hand down his face at his musings. He_ was_ fucking _worried_ about her. He hadn't cared about another human being in _decades_, and now, he was starting to remember why_: it was a pain in the fucking ass_.

Victor slouched against the remains of a stump, coming to a decision.

She was throwing him off his game, and had been since the beginning. If they were going in to find Jimmy, he needed her out of his system before they got there. Then, he could get the damned collar off and wash his hands of the whole situation, just as he intended.

Victor was lying to himself, and he knew it, but there was no way their association would end well.

But he was so goddamn tired of fighting himself and his instincts. Why not enjoy the next few days before things inevitably went to shit?

He could even have a little game of cat and mouse before claiming her.

Victor Creed stood, resolved.

There was only one bed in the place, and he intended to _use_ it.

* * *

Rogue was seated at the kitchen table, staring at the ring she'd yanked off her left hand and contemplating the absurdity that was her life when Creed returned to the house. He tromped through the dining room door, lugging an armful of firewood over his shoulder.

She glanced outside before he slammed the door shut against the icy wind. He'd left a whole sled full of the stuff on his back porch.

"Isn't that a bit much?" She asked.

"Only if you like staying warm. This is just a day's worth. There's a front comin' in that'll drop a fuckton more snow overnight."

He paused in unloading the wood and leered at her, "But if you don't want the heater, I'm sure we could always come up with more exciting ways to keep you warm."

It was more the timbre of his voice than the actual words that caused a whole different kind of fire to kindle low in her belly. The worst part was that she knew he could _smell_ it.

She felt her face heat with embarrassment.

Marie_ hated_ blushing. She hadn't been so flustered since she'd first started dating Bobby in high school, and he certainly didn't have the same kind of _presence_ that Victor did. With a couple of smarmy words, Creed had her beet red, and panting after him.

It was _infuriating_.

But he just loaded the wood into the heater, like he _hadn't_ just come on to her. After the stress of the past several weeks, and the last few hours even more so, _that_ turned out to be the last straw.

He was in the process of dusting off his hands when Rogue jumped up out of her seat, stormed over to him, and shoved his back against the nearest wall. And the smirking asshole _let_ her.

The kiss was feral -an unrestrained clash of lips and tongues and teeth, their pent up frustrations racing to the fore.

She accidentally nicked his lip on her newly sharpened incisor. Rogue briefly tasted blood before the tiny wound healed, but that only incited her companion further. Victor took control then- flipping their positions and hoisting her to a better angle. Her legs wrapped around his hips of their own volition, as he ground against her.

She didn't know which one of them started with the touching-touching, but she'd found her way under his shirt and smoothed her hand over the fur of his tightly muscled belly, teasing lower and lower. Meanwhile Victor had grown annoyed with the inconvenience of her own shirt, ripping it clean down the middle and causing it to hang uselessly about her elbows.

They broke for air, his head ducking to her neck, sucking and nipping. His hand tugged at the waistband of the sweats she'd donned, his claws skittering delicately, _teasingly,_ over her heated skin.

In retaliation, Rogue gripped him firmly through his jeans. His chuckle was so sinful that she shivered from the promise in it.

She felt his claws retract, as two digits tapped at her entrance.

"_Please_," she eked out, breathlessly.

Victor was infuriatingly slow- in sharp contrast to the quick, wicked nips he spread generously to her neck and chest. His thumb teased around her clit without ever touching it, while two fingers dipped shallowly into her passage before stroking deeper and quickly retreating.

Just when she thought she'd go crazy from the teasing, an expert flick of his thumb directed at her swollen nub sent her over the edge. Rogue was floating, and not just metaphorically.

* * *

"Victor!"

Her weight crashed fully against him, and he stilled himself immediately. Rogue's sudden panic was enough to snap him out of his lust filled haze. So much for a long, teasing game of cat and mouse.

"You're okay!" She clutched at him, burying her face in his shirt, gripping him more tightly than she should have been able.

He scented the relief rush through her. Victor reluctantly, but prudently, slipped his fingers from her warm, wet cunt.

"Shit, kid, calm down."

He gently pushed her back, hooking a knuckle that _hadn't_ just been down her pants, under her chin. The acrid scent of fear and anxiety bubbled back to the surface. For once, the combination was a complete mood killer.

"What the hell just happened?" he asked.

Victor watched her start to shut down and shut him out. _Like hell _he'd let that happen. The Cat was clamoring for control, but Victor quashed it down, determined to get to the bottom of this.

"Hey!" he snapped his fingers in front of her face. "You with me?"

"I- I lost control just now, of my mutation." Marie's eyes rounded, as she lifted her gaze to his. "But it's not working. Nothing's happening."

* * *

**Next time:** A little more dilly-dallying and maybe even something useful. At this rate, poor Logan is going to be all brainwashed and stabby before they ever make it to him. Tsk. Tsk.

**A/N:** Sorry, for the delay! I _knew_ this chapter would take a lot of prodding and rewriting, and unfortunately I was right. On the bright side, I've been watching the Rogue cut and the new season of Ray Donovan while excitedly screaming like a five year old. More fanfic fodder for me, in both cases. So, once this story is finished (in four chapters or so), I have a few more Victrie fic ideas I'd like to explore. Hopefully, for all our sakes, they'll stay confined to one-shots.


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter 10**

* * *

_K__ree_.

"Quit doin' that," Victor groused, shaking her shoulder to get her attention. Again.

He still had a hold on her from, well, _before_. Thankfully, above the waist and through safe layers of clothing. Her skin hummed with, if not her own mutation, then _power_, and she did not trust it in the slightest.

Any other time Creed's general overbearingness would have annoyed the hell out of her. But right now-

"Sorry."

"And quit fucking apologizing. I don't want to hear it."

"I- Right," Rogue agreed.

She could feel the buzz of energy receding, but then it spiked again.

Victor gripped her by the shoulders to steady her. She had not even realized that she had been shaking.

"Jesus, Rogue, your scent's all over the place. Calm the fuck down, and talk to me."

"That's rich coming from Mr.-Doesn't-talk-about-anything-ever-and-just-expects-me-to-go-along-with-his-shit."

_Now_, _focus_.

The buzz ebbed again, and this time Marie held it down. It wasn't control as she knew it, but it was _something_, and she felt almost normal again.

Marie caught Victor's expression, after she had collected herself.

"Didn't mean to say that out loud," she muttered.

Her brain-to-mouth filter obviously took a vacation some time in between waking up yesterday and nearly having sex with Creed against the wall five minutes ago.

The whole possibly absorbing a half-alien and screwing up her mutation thing was freaking her out, and she didn't even know where to begin to talk about it. Or even if she _wanted_ to talk about it.

"But it's true. And don't you dare say it's different. You're just as bad as Logan."

_There_, a direct comparison would definitely get him off the subject.

"You drive me up the goddamn wall!," Victor shouted. "Is that what you want to hear?!"

Creed let her go and stalked to the table, plopping into on of the heavy wooden chairs and leveling his gaze on her.

"I'm fucking worried about you, Marie."

Rogue froze against the wall, regarding the man before her keenly.

"I've never told you that name," she finally said.

"I've tracked your ass across the fucking _continent_ before, and you really don't think I know your _name_? For fuck's sake, kid."

Momentarily distracted from her present worries, Marie realized how exactly he must have gotten that information. Or, rather, from whom. She'd pretty much written her parents off after she… left, but that didn't mean she wanted them dead.

"And before you start, I didn't go near your piece of shit family. Now, come over here, sit your ass down, and quit trying to distract me."

She really hated that he could read her so easily. _Stupid ferals._

Rogue sat but she didn't talk. As the seconds ticked by, an impatient rumbling issued from the man across from her.

"Can't we just talk about something else, for right now, please?"

"All right," he relented without a fight.

_That's just not right._

When he set his mind to something, Creed was like a dog with a bone, or perhaps more aptly, a cat with a mouse. But then, a cat might leave a mouse alone for a while and, instead, strike when the poor creature least expected it.

Rogue didn't take well to being the mouse.

They sat in tense silence for several more long moments. If he was going to try to wait her out, it would be a long time coming. If she could out stubborn the Wolverine, then she could out stubborn Victor Creed, no problem.

"I'm waitin'."

_Ha! See? Can totally out stubborn Sabretooth._

He seemed to take her talking comment seriously.

_Damn. Can't a girl just have a breakdown in peace every now and again?_

Clearing her brain of Creed, sex, and unfortunate mutation malfunctions, Marie settled on the perfect topic. They really needed to discuss what they were going to do once they reached the coordinates Wade had given them.

"We should talk about our plan for when we leave here."

Creed nodded for her to continue.

"I know we have coordinates, but how will we even get in? We don't have the Blackbird, so we can't get the drop on them."

"The fuck we need a jet for? We got me."

"They'll know we're coming," Marie countered. "And if it's a base in the middle of nowhere, they probably don't take too kindly to random passersby."

"Don't worry about it."

Marie crossed her arms and pointedly glared at the man. _Mr.-Doesn't-talk-about-anything case in point._

Creed huffed.

"We'll take the truck as far as we can. Get a rental, or go the rest of the way on foot."

"_Please_ tell me you're joking."

"'Less you're too frail," he taunted.

That didn't sound like a solid plan to her.

"What about when we get in. And what if it's a trap?"

Victor snorted.

"Just thinking of that _now_? The fuck do they teach you X-babies? 'Course it's probably a trap. The base is legit enough. Got blueprints printed in the study."

Creed stood and swaggered to a yet unexplored portion of the house. Intrigued, Rogue followed.

"How did you get blueprints? _When_ did you get blue prints?"

"If I told you that, I'd have to kill you," Victor deadpanned.

"That's just trite," Marie complained.

"First crass, now trite. You really know how to stroke a man's ego, kid."

Marie scrunched her nose before she caught herself. He was trying to get a rise out of her.

"I never called you crass. You came up with that summation all on your own."

Creed waved a hand dismissively. "Yeah, yeah."

The man passed her a surprisingly advanced laptop. Surprising, because when it came to technology, Logan was a troglodyte around anything vaguely resembling a computer, and she had rather expected the same of Victor.

The screen held the promised schematics, which had already been analyzed and annotated by the feral beside her.

Instead, it turned out that Victor Creed was a skilled hacker that even knew how to cover his virtual tracks.

_Who'd've thunk?_

* * *

_Sex, sex, sex, sex, sex. _It was all Rogue had on the brain since their impromptu strategy session, and it was annoying the hell out of her. She wrapped herself in an ancient old quilt that didn't quite seem Victor's style and had secluded herself to the back porch to watch the snow fall.

As far as talking shop went, Victor actually had ideas that extended beyond, 'let's waltz in and hope they don't notice.' And she thought that his plan might actually work. Unless it _was_ a trap, in which case, their fall back plan was still along the lines of 'shooty, stabby, run, run.'

She didn't see why_ she_ had to be the captured mutant test subject when he got to be the soldier bringing her in, though.

"_You kiddin'? You're tiny," he had said._

"_I can take you any day of the week, Victor Creed."_

She remembered his lascivious grin at that particular assertion. _Perv._

"_Maybe, but you can't keep a straight face for shit. Besides, you're just a baby, and they'd never believe it the other way 'round. I've been in this game a lot longer than you, sweetheart."_

She could pinpoint _that_ as the moment that the strictly businesslike nature of the conversation went by the wayside.

He did not try to steer her back to what had happened in the kitchen as she had expected, but he _did_ take every opportunity to touch her bare skin while they hammered out the details.

Half the time she didn't even think Creed realized he was doing it. The other half, he was definitely touching her on purpose. The crazy asshole actually seemed to _want_ a repeat and then some of earlier, and her body was definitely in agreement. Too bad she couldn't count on it to not go haywire.

She would say that they were dancing the fine line between two people stuck in an odd situation and something akin to _lovers_, but that would be a big fat lie.

They'd heedlessly stomped across that line earlier in the kitchen.

She could even admit that she liked the bastard. A lot. Like 'dangerous for her emotional well being once he inevitably pulled the rug out from under her in probably a few days' a lot.

And yet she wanted him all the same.

"The hell are you doing?" Creed interrupted.

_Speak of the devil._

She couldn't complain, really. He'd left her alone a lot longer than she thought he would, but that didn't mean she was ready to face him. She'd planned on sneaking back in later after she was sure he was asleep.

Not that it would have worked, though he _might_ have been groggy enough to not interrogate her.

She should have known he'd come looking, though. It wasn't the first time; he always seemed to find her before she thought he would even bother to look. The idea stuck with her and she thought maybe, just maybe, he was as invested in her as she was becoming in him.

* * *

"Exactly what it looks like I'm doing. Watchin' our own personal blizzard."

"You're going in. You're fucking freezing, and I don't want to hear about it when you get frostbite," Victor Creed absolutely did not grumble. Grumbling meant petulance and he was a grown damned man. A tired, too old for this shit, grown damned man.

He hadn't slept in days, Rogue's needless worrying over her mutation was messing up the marathon sex portion of his plans, and Victor Creed was in a bad damned mood.

At this point, all he wanted was to go to fucking sleep, and for that he needed Rogue beside him. The 'whys' were immaterial. He was sick of the dancing around and denying what he wanted, and his baser half was just happy he'd finally pulled his head out of his ass.

He'd even left her alone the whole evening so she could get her head on straight, when all he really wanted was to burrow into her warmth and rest.

"Come on; we're going to bed," he decreed.

"We?" Marie challenged.

"Yes, _we_."

"I'm not tired." She sniffed primly, which brought his attention to her cold-flushed nose and rosy cheeks. The damned blanket obstructed his view of the rest of her.

"Well, too fucking bad. _I_ am, and I want you there."

Before the girl could find some other protest, he hoisted her by the waist and flopped her over his shoulder. Quilt and all.

When she caught her breath, the woman shrieked and cursed at him.

He still didn't know the specifics of the floating incident, or what the hell had gone on with her while she was unconscious and unresponsive, and the physical alterations had yet to fade, but her temper was definitely back to normal. She'd be okay.

"No need for name callin', sweetheart."

He bounded up the stairs two at a time and deposited the disgruntled woman on his bed.

"Ugh. Next time you plan on shaking me up like that, give me a warning so I don't spend the hour before drinking hot chocolate. Then again, it'd serve you right if I hurled on you."

Victor rolled his eyes in mock exasperation.

"Just hurry up and get your shower before the pipes freeze or some shit."

Victor was laid out on his three quarters of the large bed and nearly asleep when she poked her head out of the bathroom some twenty minutes later. The dye had washed out, and she looked more like herself. Unfortunately, that included her being covered from head to fucking toe.

But he could deal.

Maybe.

When they finally got arranged in bed, his girl was rigid and stationed at the far edge of the mattress, and that just wouldn't do. He wasn't going to get a damn bit of sleep if she stayed tense all night.

Victor reached over and pulled her back flush against his front, heedless of her blushing as he reached over her and flicked off the lamp.

If possible, she tensed up even more than before. That pissed him off, though he was fairly certain it was her mutation she was worried about.

She relaxed marginally after a moment but was still too tightly wound for him to relax.

"I thought Sabretooth was the cuddly one."

Victor chuffed sharply. He had and idea and decided that maybe sleep could wait. "You got a lot to learn about what constitutes cuddly. Lucky you got me to show ya I ain't."

At odds with his statement, he nuzzled into her hair and rubbed a hand soothingly up and down her side, tracing patterns at random with the pads of his fingers. Slowly, Rogue relaxed.

_Phase one complete._

He lazily dipped into less safe territory- Marie's scent spiked and her breath hitched. Victor teased at the sensitive flesh at her cleft through the stupid pants she wore. She was close, he could smell it, and he'd barely even done anything. He eased off. She wasn't getting hers that easily, and he could tease her all night, sleep be damned.

If she'd actually tell him what her problem was, maybe they both could get some satisfaction. That didn't seem likely if left to her own devices, so, maybe if he got her frustrated enough something would give.

It went pretty damned well until he got adventurous and tried to slip his hand under the waistband of her pants. She froze up all over again, her scent approaching panic.

"What are you _doing?_"

"You need to relax, and I'm gettin' you off so we can both get some fucking sleep," Victor grumbled.

"You don't have to touch my skin for that. What if I lose control again?"

"So you floated a little bit. Big fucking whoop. Maybe you missed it, but blondie could _fly_."

She turned in his arms and regarded him as well as her senses permitted in the darkness.

"Victor."

Marie slapped at the hand trying to work its way under her shirt. _Worth a shot._

"I'll be careful. You start losing control and need me to stop, I'll take it under advisement."

_"Victor_," She chastised again.

"Just being honest. But you can't handle it? Fine."

He diverted from his original plan and pulled away.

He'd been at half-mast before, but with the scent of her arousal lingering in the air he was straining at the sweats she'd insisted he wear.

He feigned indifference and rolled over onto his back, tucking his hands behind his head. She squinted at him dubiously, and he could probably have held back the smug grin no problem, but where would have been the fun in that? By his count, she was still one up on him anyway, and it wasn't like she wasn't stiff anymore.

"Got somethin' on your mind, darlin'? I'm taking requests."

"You're such an ass," Rogue declared.

Her frustration was thick and sweet, and if he couldn't have her like he wanted, _that_ was the next best thing.

When she turned to face away from him, he decided _one_ of them would be getting off this evening, and he sure as hell wasn't going to be quiet about it.

He shucked the sweats without preamble- she was more than covered for the both of them if it came down to it.

Victor moaned as he gripped himself with the hand that had been teasing her folds, willing her to turn around and watch.

"What are you-? You can't do _that_! I'm right _here_. "

It was amazing how he could make her blush over the smallest of things.

"You offering?"

When she made no further move to assist Victor teased his hand up the shaft and gripped harder on the way back, hissing at his own rough down stroke.

Her scent mingling with his, even if only by proxy, had him harder than he ever remembered. The mental image of her sweet mouth or her-

"Dammit, Victor."

Suddenly, a small, gloved hand interrupted his own and he nearly lost it right then.

"Kree." She bit out. Rather than lending him a hand, she remained infuriatingly stationary.

He rumbled out his own growl of frustration, raking his unoccupied hand through his hair.

_The fuck's Cree supposed to mean anyway. _

"My name has a 'd' in it. Please tell me you ain't brain damaged. I don't know what the hell we'll do if I can't heal you. 'N if you don't plan on using that hand, you better get it the fuck off my dick."

Her hand slid away, and she shot him an annoyed glance. He glared at her right back.

"Not _you_, K-r-e-e," she spelled out. "Carol. She's some kind of Kree hybrid."

"What the _fuck_ is a Kree?"

"Um, well. Alien." She mumbled.

_Alien. Of course. _Like mutants, superheroes, and shady government agencies weren't enough.

"Anyway, that's why my mutation is going haywire."

"You're gonna do this _right fucking now_?"

This was the talk he'd been angling for hours ago. His cock was a trooper, though, and still ready to go. More than ready. Was ready at least three days ago.

"I want you. But I don't know exactly what I got from her, and nothing's working right, and I could hurt you."

"That ain't exactly a deterrent," Victor admitted.

"I don't _want_ to hurt you, you idiot!"

He rolled and pinned her underneath him- looked her in the eyes and found sincere determination there. It made him uncomfortable as fuck, but he wasn't going to let that get to him.

"Marie, nothin' bad is gonna happen. And if it does, I'll heal."

She was waffling. The Rogue simply needed a push in the right direction.

"Your skin the only reason you have against me being balls deep in you right now?" He asked, bluntly.

"Well, yeah." She sputtered as though it were obvious.

"Good. Ugly ass pants. Lose'em."

"But-"

Nipping at the exposed flesh at her collar might have been underhanded, but he wasn't about to start playing fair now that she'd admitted out loud to wanting him.

"Oh! 'Kay," she agreed.

The tags were gone, but he didn't pause; he didn't want to acknowledge it, but the instinct to replace them with a mark of his own was undeniable.

She didn't move fast enough with the top and he helped her by shredding it.

Rogue laughed as he tossed the ruined fabric.

"That was the only sleep shirt I had left."

"You won't be needing it," he promised.

A fresh wave of her arousal assaulted his senses, and she was so fucking _wet_, Sabretooth roared to the foreground of his mind before he could even think to push back against it. But rather than finding himself thrust aside- something _clicked_ back into place that hadn't been right in a long goddamned time. Victor Creed and Sabretooth reconciled- if only for the moment, animal and man fully in control.

He opened his eyes as he nudged at her folds. His hands weren't idle as he laved a pink nipple with his rough tongue. Rogue was making pretty little moans as she gripped him, trying to direct him right where he wanted to be.

_Impatient little thing._

"Ready?"

She nodded once and bit her lip as he worked the head past her entrance. With a rumbling purr of his own, he slid home. He was easy with her to start- a slow rhythm she followed eagerly, trying to urge him along.

Victor obliged, then, at some point the dam burst and as she was clenching around him and calling _his_ name, the instinct to mark bucked up. He thrust harder, faster, and he bit deeply at the juncture of her neck, meeting resistance as he came, pumping her full to brimming.

Eventually, Victor allowed himself to collapse onto his back, dragging his still erratically breathing partner along with him.

"I can feel it buzzing," she announced as she tried to scramble away.

He tucked her closer.

"Ain't doing nothing. See?"

He pinched her ass in emphasis, just to hear her squeal, and his girl didn't disappoint.

Her brow furrowed in consternation. "You're right, but-"

While she was fretting about her skin, he took in the area at the juncture where her neck met her shoulder. At the spot where he'd bit her, he saw a whole lot of nothing.

He fingered along the delicate unblemished skin. Earlier, she'd floated off the ground and right now...

"You trust me?"

She nodded distractedly.

"Mutation still active?"

"I can't turn it off," Marie admitted.

"Good."

* * *

The next thing she knew, his claws were raking sharply down her arm, only it didn't hurt. It was more like a nice, firm scratch, and when she looked down, there was no mark.

Creed's face broke out into a fierce grin.

"Punch me."

"I don't-"

He came at her, and she struck back out of instinct, watching him sail off the bed.

Marie heard a loudly rumbling noise, and when she peered over the edge she found Creed laughing his ass off.

"Rogue, darlin', I think you just might be a match for me."

* * *

The engagement ring was gone from the table the next morning. She didn't know where or when Victor had stashed the piece of jewelry, but she supposed it didn't matter. It had just been a prop, after all.

But then the ring showed up again later, right back on the kitchen table, this time attached to a man's sturdy silver chain. Victor's eyes lit on her when he noticed her wearing it, but he didn't say anything about it, and neither did she.

Logan's tags were safely tucked away in her new bag, awaiting their impending return to their rightful owner.

* * *

Her draining mutation came back on the fourth day, while she was face down, ass up on his living room rug, and he was spilling inside her.

He wouldn't have moved even if he could. The line between pain and pleasure blurred, as more than just his cum was drawn into her. It only lasted for an instant before she tamped it down.

He collapsed lazily against her back. She'd wiped him every time she had drained him before, but this time he was barely worse the wear; a bit blitzed and a whole lot satisfied. He felt fucking fantastic. Collar and all. Her mutation was wild, but obviously not unmanageable.

The drain during sex was even better than the floating thing they did earlier.

"Victor! Are you okay? Get off, get off, get off," Rogue fretted.

"Just did," he nuzzled into her neck, making no move to do as bid. She was absolutely saturated in him, and he planned on keeping her that way.

"You're not funny, damn it. I can't hold it back with you all over me."

"Good, 'cause in five minutes we're gonna do _that_ again."

She twisted and bucked against him, using her newly absorbed strength to try to dislodge his bulk. Victor rolled onto his back, taking her with him, and keeping a firm grip on her hips. Fuck a refractory period, he was ready to go again _now _with the way she was squeezing his dick.

"I'll even let you be on top."

* * *

They could get out, if they wanted. He knew the terrain. Hell, he'd driven on this snow before most people's grandparents were even _born_. They could leave, _should_ leave. He'd outright lied to her when she asked if it was safe enough, earlier.

The gnawing in his gut increased, and he shoved it away.

Thing was, he didn't fucking _want_ to go. He had a good mind to say, 'fuck Jimmy' and hole up for the winter. He'd already had her one way or another in every room in the place, so, maybe by the end of the season, the Rogue would be out of his system.

And_ that_ was an outright lie to _himself_.

In the end they stayed at his cabin for five whole days, and Victor utilized every spare second of them.

* * *

"You good?"

"Yeah."

He tied the flimsy knots of her makeshift bindings, finishing with the gag.

"Can you still reach your gun with those on?"

She nodded once.

"Test it."

She pulled at her bonds and nodded again. One make-believe future lab rat set and ready to go.

It was a mistake bringing her along. For the first time in memory he felt the mellow glow of contentment, and in about twenty minutes, that feeling would be right down the shitter. Then, there was the fact that he didn't know if he was going to be able to hold himself back, if any of those fuckwits laid a hand on Rogue.

They drove in silence and the contented buzz from the last days trickled steadily into acidic dread.

* * *

"I'm sorry. She's not on the registry, Captain."

"'Course she's not on the fucking registry, or _I _wouldn't be the one haulin' her ass in. Special orders."

Victor flashed his papers.

Different names and different faces, but this was the same old shit he'd been doing since long before overbearing bureaucracy and regulations had sucked all the fun out of the military game.

"You gonna buzz us through, or you gonna stand there with your hand up your ass and explain to the boss man why you let Weapon Ten destroy another lab? Fine. Call it in. I'll wait."

The steely, young soldier deliberated a moment before waving them through.

Looked like he hit the nail on the head. Victor figured that with how long they'd been holding the runt, there must be some property damage by this point. Or he'd just tipped their hand and walked into a massive trap. Either or.

Once through the checkpoint, the complex sat unremarkably like any other base, the automatic doors opened wide at their arrival.

"Think that's an invitation or what?"

His trussed up companion cut her eyes at him and huffed.

Thus far, his blueprints checked, and Victor walked with authority toward where he anticipated the laboratories to be located.

They didn't pass anyone on their way down, at all. It was damned suspicious, but he'd planned for a trap. Victor shifted his hold on Rogue to cleanly slice the ties binding her hands together.

The periodic claw-made gouges and outright holes in the concrete walls made finding the right lab easy, maybe too damn easy. Regardless, he and Rogue slipped into the laboratory's control room unseen and never seeing another living soul.

There, on the other side of the glass, was Jimmy. The man floated in an eerie, fluid-filled glass chamber, all hooked up to machinery with a dumbass looking helmet covering his face. The alien sensation of guilt bubbled up again. His brother was so far gone as to allow himself to be stuffed into a watery, vertical coffin, and that was a fucking terrible sign.

"We need to get him out of there," Rogue said.

He growled in agreement. By Victor's figuring it was about time for the shoe to drop.

"You keep watch. I'll play button pusher." He'd seen this kind of set up before- just like any other lab run by the U.S. government's clandestine Organization.

They'd had the base at Alkali Lake, but with that one defunct, _this _one wasn't exactly a surprise. Spending the last weeks getting off the grid and away from the bastards only to beat down their door with Rogue in tow was almost funny.

He focused on the task at hand, punching in code after code, tying to initiate the 'drain and release' sequence.

Behind him, Rogue shifted from foot to foot, discarding the remains of her bindings. She was antsy, though he abruptly realized that he could not scent it.

Or damn anything, for that matter.

_Fuck._

"Victor, I think-"

Sabretooth heard the clack of boots running down the hall, and shoved the woman behind him just as they burst through the door. _Primary exit blocked._

He glanced through the glass to the lab and unsurprisingly, more soldiers poured into the space from some other door.

All were conspicuously human, armed to the teeth, and holding their fire.

At his back, Rogue squared her shoulders.

"Ready, sugar?"

"Let's get this shit over with."

* * *

**Next Time**: They get this shit over with. …Or something to that effect.

**A/N:** There are a few 'outtakes' from this chapter that didn't quite fit, and the chapter was getting a bit long, so they got the axe. I'm going to try and work them into other Victrie things I'm writing. They were mostly more funny than anything, so you're not really missing out on much. Until next time!


	11. Chapter 11

**A/N:** I'm super sorry for the delay! I've had a few weird, stressful months that massively threw off my writing plans. Anyway, here's chapter eleven!

* * *

**Chapter 11**

* * *

"What you waitin' for, pissants?!" Victor taunted as he lunged at the nearest contingent, taking down several soldiers before Rogue heard the first shots ring out.

Groans and gurgles interspersed with the maelstrom of gunfire.

Rogue kept low, searching for an entrance to the lab proper from the control room.

It was strategy born of pure practicality. While Victor distracted, she would get Logan to safety. Marie didn't like that part of the plan; the 'let's split up, gang!' trope never ended well. She also doubted that this jaunt would end as simply and quietly as unmasking a Scooby Doo villain.

She grew bolder in her quest as, strangely, none of the soldiers ever aimed at her. She figured she could examine their motives or orders later, but for now, she would take advantage of her apparent invisibility.

The glass panel took up the entirety of the wall, and the other walls appeared completely smooth. There _wasn't_ any door leading from this control station as far as Rogue could see, and there were so many buttons and knobs on the panel that it would take far more time than she had to figure out if they would be of any help. The squadron trying and failing to take down Victor blocked her only way out.

Rogue found the handful of soldiers on the other side of the glass had their weapons trained on her, apparently not having the same qualms as the ones in the room with her. They guarded Logan's prison as a handful of scientists worked feverishly to open the contraption.

Victor's earlier, seemingly random, button pushing had paid off, and the liquid had already started draining from the strange machine. It was over half empty, and with a couple of minutes, she didn't doubt that the scientists would have him successfully removed and taken away.

"_Crap_, I need to get in there." Rogue blocked out the chaos around her and concentrated.

If there wasn't a door handy, she would just have to make her own.

* * *

Two were down and he was on the third before the barrage of bullets sprayed through him.

Quick and clean and boring, but this wasn't playtime.

The damned slugs burned and itched as they passed through him, and with the way these candyasses were being careful of wasting ammo, he knew why.

Fucking adamantium bullets, or at least secondary adamantium, like his collar.

Rushing footfalls down the hall heralded the impending second wave of fodder. Even with their special artillery, and barring a lucky headshot, these soldiers weren't a match for him. Victor idly wondered when he'd get to meet the asshole that managed to drag Jimmy back from his escape attempt- it sure as fuck wasn't any of these pansy humans.

A soft, startled, "ow," broke over the din just before a red haze rose up over his vision.

These fuckers just signed their death warrants.

* * *

A streak of motion momentarily distracted Rogue from her ineffectual efforts of pulling up the mutation she needed.

The little metal slug ricocheted off her shoulder, disappearing back into the chaos.

Unbridled pressure welled up behind her eyes, burning through her retinas and washing the world in red. Even as her vision faded, she desperately tore her gaze away from the action toward the glass. Abrupt silence followed the panicked cacophony, and Rogue slammed her eyes shut.

She sensed the heat of Victor beside her, an instant before she felt frantic hands rending through the material of her coat.

"Dammit, where were you hit?" he growled.

She felt the slightest tremor to his hands. Could he not smell that she wasn't bleeding?

Even surrounded by carnage, Sabretooth could pick out a scent, _or_ its absence.

"I'm fine. Think it bounced off."

The warm hands slid away, with a murmur Rogue didn't quite catch.

She felt the pressure and heat recede and cautiously opened an eye.

"Where-" she started.

"You got 'em."

Taking in the charred remnants of the room and beyond, Rogue swallowed hard. Logan's metal pod, however, sat unscathed amongst the wreckage. "Right."

Victor shoved her down and out of the way as a bullet whizzed through the space they'd been occupying.

_Apparently, I missed one._

Sabretooth bounded through the hole above her. By the time Marie stood, she found only the aftermath- Victor heaving, breath unsteady, remnants of the would be sniper at his feet.

"'m fine." The feral groused, before Rogue could ask.

"Adamantium bullets," he elucidated, "Stings like a bitch. Be even better in a minute."

Marie held her comment about stupid, stubborn men to herself. She could always yell at him later. Enemy territory was not the best place for censuring Sabretooth on reckless behavior, even if he would, and had, yelled at her for the same.

Rogue floated down to the expansive, though wrecked, room below. She tried to ignore where her thought process went on the subject of how 'floating practice' had been carried out, but she knew her momentary lapse shouldn't have gone unnoticed by the feral.

And Victor didn't even smirk smarmily in her direction.

"You can't smell anything, can you?" That's how that last one got the drop on him, and why he did not react with his usual uncanny accuracy.

"Well, we ain't got all fuckin' day. Let's get a move on, and it won't be a problem."

_Would it kill him to come right out and say, 'Yeah, Rogue. And without my scenting abilities, I'm working half blind here.'_

"Actually, it probably would," She grumbled to herself.

Victor cut his eyes at her, but did not ask for clarification. Together they approached the pod.

This was it- what they'd been working toward since their run in at Three Mile Island, a seeming lifetime ago.

Inside, most of the greeny-blue liquid had drained away.

Rogue broke stride with Victor, edging closer to the machine to get a better look through the glass panel at the front. Logan's hand twitched, causing her to suck in a startled breath.

She caught Victor's smirk out of the corner of her eye. _His sense of smell may be gone but his hearing is just fine._

"Rookie."

"Shut up, and help me get this thing open," Marie groused.

She couldn't tell if Logan could see them through the weird helmet-visor-thing he was wearing... or if he was even awake.

It was then she'd realized that Victor still stood some ten feet away.

"Victor?"

The man in question stared at the pod with determination. Noting her attention, he inclined his head toward the door and then nodded toward the hole she'd made in the observation deck.

Rogue heard the clatter of footfalls in the distance. Lots of them.

"You get Jimmy out. I'll clear the way," Victor directed.

With the grace of a cat, he cleared the fifteen-foot drop to the upper level, landing firmly on the floor above. With nary a glance back, he rushed out of sight.

* * *

Victor found the back up squad waiting for him down the hall. They weren't armed as well as their predecessors but this bunch were mutants. Nothing more than a bunch of wet-behind-the-ears cubs.

Rogue would probably try to reason with them or some shit. Offer them a place at Xavier's school.

Victor wasn't a hero. Never aspired to be.

"Any of you little shits don't wanna die, get the fuck outta my way."

None budged. He recognized the blankly resolute looks on each and every face. These weren't mutants so much as wiped _experiments_.

Stryker had started working on this shit in the eighties. Whatever had risen from the ashes of the Weapon X program must have perfected and refined the serum.

"No takers? And here I was tryin'a be _nice._"

He allowed his vision to bleed black, intent upon taking no quarter.

The nagging sensation began as his claws lengthened. He ignored it.

_Stupid new conscience._

Victor set to work.

* * *

The distinctive snickt of Wolverine's claws being released sounded behind her an instant before the adamantium screeched through metal and glass alike.

The man stumbled free of his prison, shaking his helmeted head as if to clear it. Sensing her presence, he swung around to face Rogue, claws on his other hand springing free.

Logan rumbled a low growl at her, taking another step forward. Implanted wires and medical tubing provided no resistance, snapping readily from their anchors within the machine.

Free of his watery prison, the man before her was rightfully pissed.

"Logan, it's me. Can you even see outta that thing?"

His guttural warning grew in volume, showing no signs recognition.

"I'm Rogue- Marie, remember?" Rogue tried again, keeping her voice even and soothing. "Wolverine? You there?"

He cocked his eerily helmed head, as if to hear her better.

"Can you hear me? I came to take you home."

Fearing the worst, Marie took a tentative step toward her erstwhile teammate and best friend.

"I won't hurt you and you won't hurt me. We stick together."

They couldn't afford much time, but this was a delicate situation and she needed him to trust her.

He ceased the rumbly growls and relaxed his stance.

Rogue's relief was short lived, as he crouched- tension coiled like a spring. The Wolverine lunged, aiming for her throat.

* * *

Victor held the last man by his throat and shoved him up against the wall.

He had chosen the one that looked least blank for a quick interrogation. It wouldn't do much good getting Jimmy out, if he didn't know who'd done it, so he could hunt the fucker down after all this.

It was a fruitless effort; he doubted any of these assholes even knew their own name.

He slammed the man back, one last time, cracking the wall.

"Who you work for?"

"Me."

As if a veil lifted, Victor could scent again. Someone else had joined him and the owner of that scent was the same feral that had left traces on James' tags. Looked like he wouldn't need to hunt, after all.

Sabretooth dropped the limp body, turning to face an umbral figure lurking clichély just out of sight.

The hulking mutant stepped forward out of the shadows like every B-movie villain for the past thirty years.

Taller than himself and graying at the temples, the supposed show runner of this freak show lifted his hands in mock surrender.

And here little Rogue thought _Victor_ was dramatic.

Sabretooth cocked his brows- injecting every ounce of sarcastic incredulity he could into the expression.

Dark claws, too similar to his own, extended from the stranger's hands.

Noting Victor's line of sight, the new feral lowered his hands, and smiled nastily, revealing a set of sharp fangs.

Sabretooth cracked his neck and threw back his shoulders, ready for anything.

"Hello, son," the stranger greeted.

_Anything, except that._

* * *

Marie dodged the blades and reached out toward Logan, intent on drawing the man to herself.

She used her newfound strength to grab and hold his wrists, preventing the Wolverine from driving his claws into her.

Madly, he used this new position to try to snap at her jugular. This was the Wolverine in survival mode- a full on berserker rage.

She'd never seen it first hand, and there'd been no trigger that she could figure out. She knew from his vague memories that this happened when he snapped in the thick of battle- not without reason. _Unless-_

_The helmet._

"Sorry, sugar."

At the last possible second, she used Logan's momentum against him, flipping him onto his head hard enough to crack the metal and plastic device clean off. The blow was strong enough to leave the feral dazed.

A high-pitched keening buzz issued from the remains of the machine, and Rogue stomped it to bits. At least her new strength was good for something.

The Wolverine collapsed limply to the floor as the noise died away.

"Ow," The feral complained.

"Logan?" Marie tried again, trying not to inject too much hope into her voice.

Now wasn't the time for hope; now was the time for getting him to trust her enough to let her get them out of here. Even if he didn't know her at the moment. Logan was still Logan. He may or may not be brainwashed, but either way, she intended to help him.

The man had pulled himself into a rough approximation of a seated position, hair even more wildly askew than normal.

There was no acknowledgement that he'd even heard her.

Marie chanced a step closer.

Flashing gold eyes snapped up to meet her own.

"Wolverine?"

His brow furrowed as he made note of his surroundings, all the while keeping a wary eye on her.

Suddenly, he jumped to his feet. Apparently, he decided she was a non threat and exposed his back to her.

She couldn't decide whether that was a reassuring sign or utterly insulting.

"Big guy." He muttered, looking toward the direction in which Victor had disappeared.

"Victor's with me. _Working_ with me," She clarified, "He's on our side."

Wolverine huffed a derisive exhale though his nose, standing to his full height.

The next time he spoke, his voice was firm and perfectly clear.

"Not him. The other one."

* * *

Victor barked out a laugh as the feral haze left his vision.

"Nice try, gramps."

A flutter of amusement passed over the larger feral's face.

"More apt than you know." The man toed one of the fallen mutants, and the female groaned.

"You seem to be slipping, boy."

Victor stared dispassionately as the newcomer crushed the woman's neck underfoot.

"They ain't worth my time." Victor returned, "Ain't no fun if they're zombies and don't know what the fuck's going on."

He watched the other inspect his handiwork, and Victor could tell the old feral wouldn't go down easy.

Fact of the matter was Victor would need to be in his best shape to kick this guy's ass.

Fact of the matter was- he wasn't.

These cubs might not have been worth the effort, but those last rounds from the fucker who'd tried to shoot Rogue hadn't gone through cleanly and were wreaking havoc on his healing.

"Got a name, old man? Seems I should know it, if we're plannin' some kind'a family reunion."

He could feel two slugs being slowly edged out by his reknitting muscle tissue. Victor needed a couple of more minutes to recuperate- his body couldn't push the adamantium composite out fast enough.

"Romulus." The feral introduced and held a sharply taloned hand out to him, palm up, as if beckoning Victor to take it.

Unbidden, an ancient memory swept Victor away.

_Cold and wet and hungry, kneeling in the snow with Jimmy bundled against his side. A mountain of a man extending his hand, pulling them up. Saving them. Warmth at first. Then fire. Then death. And he'd taken Jimmy and run and **forgotten**._

_Must have done._

_The old man worked more subtly after that._

"Ah, so you _do_ remember."

Victor shook his head, banishing the paradoxically new-old memories. "The fuck did you just do to me?"

"I've done nothing. _You_ are the one that's _changed_," Romulus sneered.

Victor felt the first bullet slide free of his skin. It was now or never. He let his vision bleed black, as he lunged and slashed at the other feral.

Faster than Sabretooth could track, four adamantium claws sprung free between the other man's knuckles- finding their way into Victor's chest and twisting painfully through his right lung.

Romulus paused and tilted his head, peering down the hall over Victor's shoulder.

"Ah. Did you hear that? Your female removed the helmet, and now she's _reasoning_ with him," The larger feral tutted.

Victor's healing factor was still sluggish- and with what little he knew, or rather remembered, of this man, these adamantium claws were _new_.

"What _is _it about this little, stray Rogue that has charmed away my two best soldiers? Not that it matters, I suppose. You're finished now, Victor. I have the last thing I needed from you."

"You done yakkin', yet, old man?"

Sabretooth wrenched himself away, caught a breath and made a successful slash through Romulus' armor into his midsection.

The larger man looked down at his own viscera, nonplussed.

"Hnn. almost."

Victor feinted to the side and aimed another swipe toward Romulus' heart.

"Save it. I don't fuckin-"

"I'll be taking back this collar, as well."

* * *

**Next Time:** ! ! ! ! !? !? !? !? ? ? ? ?


	12. Chapter 12

**A/N:** Hey, everyone! Since this story is drawing to a close, I wanted to let you know that I will be going back through and fixing typos, grammar, and polishing some phrasing/diction choices (this chapter included, one I have some time away from it). There shouldn't be any major changes that would merit rereading.

* * *

**Chapter 12**

* * *

"How the hell did you end up with _that_ asshole for back up, anyway? Where's the rest of the team?"

Yep, Logan was definitely back to normal, but something she couldn't quite quantify was _different_ about him.

"We ran into each other." Rogue answered. "And, well, the team's probably out lookin' for me too, right now, to be honest."

She hadn't even considered trying to find a phone to contact the Professor for the last leg of the journey. Which, okay, wasn't smart as far as contingency plans went.

But then, she hadn't been sure what they would find here, either. It just as easily could have been nothing.

"Shit." He cursed, rubbing at his temples as though her admission gave him a headache. Logan didn't get headaches, though, so-

"Logan are you okay?"

It was a stupid thing to ask considering all he'd been through, but they both knew she wasn't asking after his physical state.

He let his hand swipe down his face and drop to his side, though his posture remained rigid and ill at ease.

"I'm fine," he bit out, refusing to face her.

_How could I have ever missed the resemblance between Logan and Victor? They're just alike!_

"Fine," Rogue returned dubiously, not quite willing to start a fight. "We need to get up there and out of here."

If he wanted to tell her, he would. Later. It didn't stop her from worrying about him none, though.

He and Victor were the same that way, but speaking of Victor-

"And if you're not talking about Sabretooth, who's the 'other one'?"

"The boss." Logan answered, still facing away from her. After a small eternity, he turned toward her to elucidate.

"Big mean fucker. Feral. Dragged my ass back the day I almost made it out. Then he left. Don't know how long ago that was."

Logan wouldn't know how long he'd been gone either. If he asked her for today's date, she'd be hard pressed to give it.

The sharp, anxious feeling at the base of her skull radiated miserably toward the pit of her stomach. While she and Victor had been holed up in their little love-nest, Logan was here being experimented on and trying to escape.

Rogue swallowed past the lump in her throat.

And now Victor was up_ there_… He'd just been shot and taking on some creepy, mysterious feral wasn't what she had in mind when she let him run off to 'clear the way.'

Suddenly, her grand rescue didn't feel so grand. Dammit, she felt guilty for two totally different reasons, and it was Victor's fault.

Logan turned away again and surveyed the drop from the former observation room, probably judging if he could make the jump.

She could likely fly them both up there no problem. Yet another thing she added to her guilt-pile.

"Between me and Creed," he paused oddly over the name before continuing, "We can bring him down. Or slow him down. You find some way to contact Chuck."

Of course Logan would want to go fight the Boss, when just five minutes ago he'd been so out of his head that he'd been attacking _her_. And now he was delegating.

Sure they would need the team _after_, but it would take the X-Men ages to get up here, even with the Blackbird; they wouldn't make it in time to be of any help in this. He just wanted her out of the way, even though she could help.

Out of the three of them, she was the only one that could stop this guy without getting herself killed in the process.

Probably.

"Kid, listen, we need-"

"Dammit, Logan, _you_ listen. A lot's changed." She stamped her foot in a fit of pique, leaving a shallow impact crater in the cement flooring.

"Now let's go. We're wastin' time, and Victor's gonna need help if this guy's as big and bad as you say he is."

His eyes flitted from her foot to her face, and Rogue just knew how stubborn she must look. He doubtlessly saw her as more the proverbial 'petulant kid' than ever. She squared her shoulders and met Logan's gaze evenly. He didn't actually treat her like a kid often anymore, but when he did-

But then, the man surprised her with his assent.

"Yes, ma'am." Logan inclined, with raised brow and a wry grin.

Three mockingly slow claps sliced through the air.

"Riveting."

Logan's grin slid away almost faster than it came, and the hairs on the back of Rogue's neck raised. She looked up to find the ledge filled by a giant of a man.

"Really, this is the most I've been entertained in decades."

He stood framed in the gaping hole Rogue had made of the observation deck. Four wicked, bloodied claws protruded from between the knuckles of his right fist, a thick ring of metal dangled from one before he allowed it to fall carelessly to the ground with a _thunk_.

The Boss, as he must have been, stepped off the ledge and dropped heavily to the lab floor.

If he was _here,_ then Victor was _down._

"Logan..." Rogue started.

Flashing a glance at her companion she found him shaking with ill contained fury.

"I suppose we're back to square one with you, hmm?" The newcomer said, pleasantly.

Spurred into action, Logan's own claws sprung free as he charged the interloper.

In a feat of surprising agility, he dodged Logan's attack while landing a solid left-handed punch to the smaller feral's head. Stunned, the Wolverine faltered. The Boss took the momentary advantage, slicing into Logan's unprotected belly and twisting those wicked metal claws

Rogue rushed forward, drawing up short of skewering herself as the claws released on his other hand, aimed toward her.

_No plans on being a Rogue-kebab today._

"You do have a way with these brothers Miss D'Ancanto. Undoing centuries of hard work. Which makes me curious…"

Rogue sincerely doubted her 9mm would do anything to this guy other than piss him off, so she dropped into a fighting stance as he withdrew the claws and advanced.

Wonder of wonders, the asshole was _amused_.

"You think to challenge me, little one?"

Breaking form, she reared back and punched the smug bastard in the jaw, putting all of Carol's strength into the blow. The larger man sailed straight through the wall halfway across the room.

_Damn, wasted opportunity._

An instant later, he rose out of the dust and debris, stepping through her latest gaping-hole-masterpiece.

Even from her position, she could hear the audible 'click' as he set his jaw back into its proper place.

He approached her again, albeit with slightly less swagger and a modicum more caution.

"Now, now, no need for that. This is not the best way to win my regard."

_Is this guy for real?_

Faster than Rogue could track, he lunged for her, coming up short of actually clawing her.

Instead, he held out a hand.

"Come now, girl."

_The hell? _

He was _playing_ with her. Rogue did not have to feign her anger, even as she ignored the rapid tattoo of her own heart.

"Last I checked we ain't friends. What's this all for? What do you want?" Marie demanded.

"Power. Yours."

He had her hemmed against the wall, which suited her fine. This would work best in close quarters.

"Sorry, sugar, my mutation ain't for sale. But I'm all for demonstrating the business end of it."

"As you did with Victor? Yes, I know all about what you can do with your mutation, child."

The tilt of his brows intimated that he wasn't talking about what she could do in a fight.

"That ain't none of your business," she spat.

"Isn't it though? I removed one brother and sent the other one into your path. I must say he's been most _thorough_ in his reports. This is utterly_ my_ business."

Rogue didn't let the shock of the man's statement show on her face. He was lying. Trying to throw her off. But then, why wasn't Victor in here helping her and Logan escape?

"Why do you think your journey has all worked out so smoothly? Danvers caused an unaccounted for diversion, but it is no matter in the end. I wanted the set, and I will have it."

What the hell was he getting at? Regardless, the seed of doubt had been planted, and his revelations called everything into question. What was Victor doing there that night at the abandoned nuclear plant, in the first place? Why help her at all, if not on orders? And then he started making the moves on her, and she fell for it, hook, line, and sinker.

"Now, come along, and you two shall be reunited shortly."

Like hell she was going anywhere with _him_. And if what he said about Victor was true, then it was good riddance to bad garbage. She would get her and Logan outta here and Victor Creed would rue the day he ever met her. If this guy thought otherwise, he was delusional.

But if it wasn't true- _Nope. Later._

"Think I'll pass." Rogue countered.

"Stubborn. Of course you are."

"Rogue!"

Logan hurdled into her vision from behind the giant. Aiming for the man's chest, the adamantium sliced through bone and tissue.

Rogue snaked a hand forward, planning on taking him while he was distracted. It wasn't an elegant solution, and she sure as hell didn't want this guy in her head, but this would be their best chance at stopping him and his still ultimately unknown agenda.

"Ah, ah."

The feral bucked Logan's attack, flipping him over his head and slamming the smaller man into the ground. In the flurry of action, Rogue caught a kick to the solar plexus and she landed wrong on her arm, leaving her dazed and winded.

_Dammit._ She'd just needed half a second and the tiniest sliver of skin.

She gathered her wits to find the Boss's claws extended into Logan's neck, pinning him to the floor.

"Stay down, boy."

Logan tried to speak, but blood gurgled from his mouth obscuring his words.

Rogue took her chance, diving for the larger feral with her uninjured hand. He let go of Logan and caught her by the covered wrist. He jerked her up by that arm to his eye level. Black talons sliced through the opposite shoulder through her jacket and shirt, but skittered away uselessly from her skin.

His eyes lit, and his grin grew demented.

"That _is _interesting. What will it take to make you _bleed_?"

Slowly, an adamantium claw slid free, scratching at the naked skin at her collar. A rivulet of blood welled and rolled down the metal; he followed it back toward the source with his tongue.

And then Rogue had the pleasure of watching the feral's eyes roll painfully into the back of his head. Her injured hand gripped at his exposed side. She willed her mutation harder and stronger and faster than ever before.

She held on as he convulsed, collapsing beneath her. She hated and reveled in the drain.

It was different than in the past; _he_ wasn't there roaring through her head. It was just her and his power.

She held on until there was nothing left, and then she held on a little bit longer for spite. Bloodlust, his and hers.

"Marie! Let go!"

Logan's voice cut through the aberrant euphoria, and Rogue jerked away from the body.

Flashes of recent memory resolved in her head. She didn't have _him_ the same way she had others, but she had _this_. And one image in particular stuck.

"Victor," she murmured in disbelief. She fought the red haze that threatened to take over her vision. Quashing it down and willing it away.

"Who's ready to party?! Aw, dang, I'm late!" Rogue heard the shout from the hall. There was only one person that could be. Deadpool, Not Victor.

"The hell?" Logan rasped as he limped up beside her, still healing. Her stolen powers already had her set to rights.

"Awesome! Vicky lost his head! Yoo-hoo! Anybody still alive in here?"

_No. _She denied Wade's confirmation of what she already knew from _Romulus_. She needed to see for herself.

"Damn, whoever remodeled this place would make a killing in in demolition."

_He can't die._

She wasn't really seeing as the figure in red performed a magnificent somersault to their level and enveloped Logan in a full-bodied hug.

"Logie-bear! You're alive! Ow. Don't stab me. You're always so rude."

"Listen here, pal. You got two seconds to-"

"And the Sundance Kid!"

He released the Wolverine and aimed to greet her next. She couldn't handle Wade at the moment.

"Hey!" Logan blocked the man._ Bless him_.

Wade's mouth, however, was not to be deterred. "Hey, Roguey, wanna jet? No, really, there's a jet outside. Oh, right! Ok, Logan, I need you to reach into my pocket-"

Rogue didn't hear the rest as she took a running leap and flew. She alighted a moment later, her footsteps impossibly heavy and sluggish as she forced herself out into the hallway.

Picking her way slowly through the carnage, she found him.

She knew he and Logan weren't immortal, but they were damn near close.

Marie approached the prone figure, slumping down to her knees. She couldn't breath and her vision blurred.

_He_ hadn't betrayed her; Romulus had lied. And she had doubted _him._

But none of that mattered because Victor Creed was dead.

* * *

It took him a minute to get up to the level above, red-clad annoyance in tow. The idiot had somehow convinced the X-Men to come up to the base with him. There was a story there, not that Logan cared to hear it. Even now he could hear Scooter, Jean, and Ororo scouting the outer portions of the base up ahead and dealing with stragglers and mutants they found along the way. It would be some time before they made it in this far.

And Rogue… wasn't good. She was nearly catatonic beside the body.

His brother's body.

He knew it now. _Knowing things_ would take some getting used to; the odd duality of his life of not knowing anything about his past collided with memories and _details _from the before. And it was damned disconcerting.

"Do you need a hug? You look like you need a hug. The last time_ I_ was decapitated-"

"Goddammit, Wilson, shut the hell up go do something useful."

"Aye, aye, Capitán Crusty."

Wade shut up, gave him a mocking little salute, and wandered back toward the entrance, complaining about being summarily written out of the story.

Lost to her own surroundings, Marie jumped at Logan's hand on her shoulder. His ability to scent returned the further he moved from the chamber below. What Logan couldn't sense then was blatantly clear now.

"You 'n me are gonna have a long talk when this is all over, kid."

Then he gently pushed her back and away from Victor's remains.

Logan sighed a bone weary sigh as he remembered a long forgotten exchange.

"_You came back. Orders-"_

"_Fuck orders. You're my brother. I'll always come back for ya, dumbass. No matter what."_

Even now, when Logan had known him only as an enemy. Even after he'd told him they were done and had not remembered who he was. Victor was funny like that.

_"We can never be done, Jimmy. We're brothers."_

More gingerly than he though himself capable, Logan placed the severed neck flush against the wound.

Now, Victor just looked like he could be sleeping. Marie's breath caught, and he could smell a fresh wave of salt.

Logan gathered her in his arms, and they sat there beside the corpse, exhausted.

The stink of death and dying was everywhere, but the big feral wasn't a source of it. Not yet.

He was still alive, if only just. Even as Marie's quiet sobs drenched his shirt, he could hear the sinews starting to reattach, bones mending.

"Stop it, Marie. It's not your fault, and he ain't dead, yet."

"What?"

Her look of incomprehension followed by realization made him pray he was right.

"He's like me, ain't he? He heals."

Logan hoped this worked. For Marie, if no one else.

* * *

**Next Time:** Ah, ah! Spoilers!


	13. Chapter 13

**A/N:** To head things off at the pass: I don't currently have any plans to write proper a sequel to this story. I'm not ruling it out some day, but I'd like to focus on shorter works for the time being. It is possible that some related short scenes might appear in my new Victor-centric drabble dumping-ground: _Bite Sized_. I also have a couple of new Victrie and Rogan one-shots in the works, so you can be on the lookout for those, as well.

I really want to thank everyone that has read and reviewed because without your readership, this story would still just be a half finished idea rotting away on my hard drive. I hope you've all enjoyed the journey as much as I've enjoyed writing and sharing it.

* * *

**Chapter 13**

* * *

He heard the voices, first. Far away; like he was underwater.

He fucking hated water.

* * *

The scent comforted him. It left sometimes, and that irritated him. The murky, floaty feeling followed soon after it left.

He wanted the scent back.

* * *

Victor felt a slight weight on his chest. Feather light taps accompanied the shifting mass.

He tried to raise a paw to swipe away the nuisance, but his arm was too damned heavy. He growled lazily, instead.

A high voice shouted at him.

"Kitty!"

Slowly, he allowed an eye to slit open.

"Kitty! WAKE UP!"

The stark, white light was blinding, so he got his bearings via scent. The runt was there letting that damned little squirt from last night at the carnival dance on his chest. _Shit_, he must of have gone down at some point and the X-Men, being the goody-goody pains in the asses they were, took it upon themselves to _save_ him.

The fact that Jimmy was in the room with him as his guard only confirmed it.

He didn't feel like he usually did after an injury, though. He felt lethargic and slow. The fucking collar must-_ Oh._

Victor tried to sit up and failed as the world spun around him. He collapsed back to the bed, losing the scant the few inched he'd gained.

"Fuck."

"Fuck, fuck!" The child repeated enthusiastically.

Maybe it was little Rogue that drained his ass. He scented her, too, warm and sweet, but it was hours old. Gone.

"Dammit," The younger feral muttered.

Victor rumbled tiredly, and the weight abruptly disappeared.

"Kitty go night, night?" The high, little voice asked.

"Yeah, kid, Kitty go night night. Hank. Take'er would ya? I ain't too keen on bein' a lightning rod when 'Ro fries my ass for-"

* * *

Victor jolted into consciousness.

Still in the sterile, white room. Jimmy was nodding off in the corner- cutting a bleary eye at him where Victor stood with claws fully extended.

"Dammit, Victor, it's after midnight. Go back to fuckin' sleep."

_What the hell? _

_Victor?_ That wasn't right_. Logan_ knew him only as Sabretooth or Creed.

_One thing at a time._ He wasn't the most patient of men. So, the one thing at a time had better come pretty damn fast, even if he was still getting his bearings.

He felt better than he had in years, though, and didn't give a fuck what time of day it was. He got the sense that he'd been sleeping too long anyway. Victor ripped the wires and electrodes away, and he abruptly noted the lack of weight around his neck.

He'd known the damned collar had been slowing him down and sapping some of his strength, but _damn_. No wonder why he felt fantastic.

He heard James grumble about him being a pain in the ass.

"You do this, then?" Victor asked, pointing to his neck.

James shook his head, settling back into his seat as he swiped a hand down his face. "Not me. Now, sit."

He pulled out a cigar and lit it. Almost as an afterthought, he flicked Victor the lighter and tossed him a smaller package of cigarettes.

Something was definitely up. James even got the brand right. He met the smaller man's gaze, and it was hard, but one of recognition, rather than the vacant glare he'd grown used to.

Victor plopped his ass down on the bed he'd vacated.

James eyed him shrewdly, as Victor took a drag. The nicotine didn't do much for him, but the taste-

"What's the last thing you remember?"

That was easy.

"Little Rogue drainin' your ass," Victor smirked. "Tangoing with some wannabe gangsters."

His brow furrowed, as he remembered briefly rousing before when the kid had been in here.

"Little bitch drained me too, huh?"

Jimmy looked disappointed. _Like he had the right._

"That was two months ago, Victor."

He shot up off the bed.

"The fucks going on? I been down _two months_?"

"Nah. Just a couple weeks," James paused looking for the right words.

Well he'd better find them pretty damn quick. This conversation was surreal, and Victor wasn't sure he cared to hang around for the rest of it. Especially, if Jimmy remembered who the fuck he was, and it was Victor missing a _month plus_ worth of time.

"You were decapitated for a good half hour before we reached you," the younger feral continued. "And got a healthy shot of Adamantium in your gut, which, by the way, you're allergic to, dipshit. Took you a while to heal up. …Glad you did."

Decapitated? What the fuck had happened? Not knowing made him antsy, and now, he sure as fuck wanted outta here.

"Sit your ass back down. Stormin' off ain't gonna fix anything. Believe me."

Victor ground the cigarette stub into a surgical metal tray, and ignored his brother. Still the annoying-as-hell voice of reason.

"Fuck you, Jimmy."

He made it as far as wrenching the door open, at which point he was met with a wide-eyed Rogue, who had been poised to knock.

"You're _awake_," she said breathlessly.

He caught a glimmer of _something_\- of her riding him, flushed and breathless and fucking _perfect_. Fantasy or memory, he didn't know which.

The animal rose up in him faster than he thought possible with the certainty that she was _his_ in every way that mattered. To hell if he couldn't remember the details of it. He pushed back, trying to remain in control.

Victor caught his brother shaking his head out of the corner of his eye. The woman's face fell, and her eyes darted away.

"Sorry, I shouldn't have bothered you. I- just. No smoking down here. Professor's orders."

Misery oozed off of her in thick, bothersome waves.

"Glad you're awake, Creed."

She wouldn't even look in his direction as she said it, and he scented _salt_.

That wasn't right. The whole encounter was _wrong._

Then Rogue turned and fled.

Victor set off after her but was yanked back by the smaller feral.

"You know what's good for you, you'll let the fuck go, James," he warned.

"Just a minute. You even know what you're going to say to her?"

He didn't have a clue. His whole universe may have been turned on its head but he needed to get back to her. His instincts demanded it. Logic be damned.

"The fuck does it matter to you? She's mine!"

"Great sentiment there, bub. Sure she'll fall all over that," Logan snarked.

"Fuck you, runt." He was a broken record tonight, but he didn't care.

"Dammit, I'm not finished. For once, _you're_ the one that doesn't remember a goddamned thing, so, listen up. Jeannie said your recent memories may come back. Some of it, or all of it, …or none of it. Some kinda trauma mumbo jumbo. Doesn't matter. Right now, you need to figure out and decide where the hell you stand. I don't want Marie hurting over you more than she already is."

Victor didn't want her hurt; he just wanted_ her_. The smart thing would be to leave Jimmy and the Rogue in peace, turn tail, and get the fuck outta there. _Immediately._

But then, no one had ever accused Victor Creed of being smart.

* * *

He didn't remember her. He knew her- abstractly, as he did before everything happened. But he didn't _remember_ her.

Victor didn't follow her, which was... good.

All she wanted was to fall apart in peace, and she couldn't rightly do that with a pissed off, amnesiac feral breathing down her neck. She'd been worried sick for weeks now. First with Logan, and these last two over Victor.

When it became clear that he was healing and that he would make it, she had been overjoyed.

But then words like "brain damage" and "massive neuronal die-off" had been thrown around, tempering her elation. They'd kept him sedated until yesterday, when his brain scans had finally approached normal.

Though he lived, he might not remember- her or maybe anything- and even if he remembered, he might no longer care.

Lucky her, he didn't remember their time together, much less care. So, that would be that.

It was enough, Rogue convinced herself, that Victor was alive and his memory loss was practically negligible. She knew she would never catch his attention in _that way_ again. Their entire relationship had been due to the circumstances.

It was fine.

She wasn't sure he'd really grown to love her as she had him, anyway.

Hell, she'd even thought he'd betrayed her for a good ten minutes. That probably spoke volumes. Regardless, they had been doomed from the start, and there had never been talk of _afte_r. It would be easier this way. A clean break.

The cloying pain in her chest would pass.

_But not fast enough._

* * *

Logan's tags weighed heavily in her pocket. He didn't need them anymore. Didn't want them. He _remembered_, and the tags dredged up something painful. She'd fished them out of wastebasket where Logan had thrown them in a fit of pique.

They found a home at the bottom of her chest-of-drawers. He may want them some day.

She gripped the ring on the heavy silver chain, noting absently when the warm metal and stone bit into her skin. She should return it or get rid of it. The former would mean seeking _Him_ out, and she wasn't ready. The latter just wasn't an option.

She let the metal drop back to her chest.

* * *

_He_ didn't leave.

She expected him to take off as soon as possible, but it had been two days since their encounter, and _He_ was still _here._

Her updates came via Logan. As far as she could tell, the two of them had settled whatever differences were between them, or had a truce, or something.

She refused to ask after _Him_, and she could tell that her acting like everything was normal grated on Logan's nerves.

_He_ had spent most of the first morning and afternoon speaking to the professor and being filled in on everything. She'd had a similar conversation a week ago, once it was clear _He _was going to survive.

Romulus hadn't been as dead as she presumed. When they'd returned for the body, both it and the collar were gone. The fact that he got away chafed, and she was certain this was only the beginning of something bigger. The few flashes of insight she'd pulled from him weren't helpful, and for once she wished she had the full picture she usually got from her mutation pre-Carol. All she knew was that his plans had plans, and Romulus was a bona fide shit-stirrer.

Whatever those plans were, they involved Adamantium- Logan was nearly free of the metal now, save that coating his claws.

As for going rogue and landing herself on national news for the both the ninja incident and the subsequent diner incident, well, suffice it to say that Rogue was still more or less on probation from her X-duties, and practically under house arrest until it blew over and people forgot. Damned Wade.

All that meant was that she was a bored, sad lump with nothing to distract her from her misery. It was maudlin, and she didn't care. She needed time to get over _Him_, dammit, and knowing that _He_ was up and around and could run into her at any second was almost as hard as the waiting had been.

She went out of her way to avoid _Him_. It was that, or seek Him out and demand He leave, or maybe demand to know why He was still in the mansion. She wasn't clear on that point; she just knew that she wanted to demand _something_ of him, and that wasn't fair of her.

She didn't expect to find _Him_ sitting on her bed, waiting for her return.

Of course, Victor never did what she wanted him to _before_, so, why should she expect him to _now_?

* * *

"You've been avoiding me."

"No I haven't," Rogue denied.

She had, but she wouldn't concede that point. He knew that intrinsically. It seemed like she'd just left every room he entered. Her scent still fresh but the woman it belonged to long gone. As with many things over the past few days, it pissed him right off.

"I'm tired, Creed. Can you just go and do this later? Please?"

She was distancing herself- trying to get rid of him. _Fuck that._

He shot off the bed and stalked toward her. To her credit, she didn't cower; her back straightened, and her jaw clenched stubbornly.

She was strong. Fucking tiny, but strong.

He could see what about her would have appealed to him because it sure as hell appealed to him now.

He forgot his tirade when he caught the flash of a chain at her neck. Jimmy's tags. Had to be. The flash of jealously overtook his rational thought, and he stalked closer, intent on ripping the metal away. But it was wrong- delicately woven rather than a plain ball chain.

He picked the necklace up by the chain.

Not Jimmy's tags, at all.

It was… _his_. He fingered the ring that he must have given her. He recognized it from his vault in Minneapolis.

"I- Here. Let me take it off, and you can have it back."

"_No_."

Her scent was anxious, and it irritated the hell out of him. He raked his claw through his shortly cropped hair. This wasn't going the way he planned.

"I gave it to you. Keep it."

Her face bloomed red.

"Well you didn't exactly _give_ it to me. It was a prop-"

The hell it was. That was a serious damned ring. He let it drop back to her chest.

Shit. He was bad at this. It would be so easy to walk away and forget the whole damned thing. Not like he remembered anyway.

But that was too much like running, and running wasn't his gig.

Besides. The Cat had been driving him up the wall wanting to be near her and _drive her_ up the wall.

"Keep it." He ordered. "You keep it on all this time?"

For an instant, he thought she was going to rip it off and fling it at him. She didn't like being told what to do any more than he did. He tamped down on his own amusement.

"It was stupid," she huffed, defensively crossing her arms. "I know."

She averted her eyes, refusing to look at him. Rogue addressed the wall several inches to his left.

"You here for a reason, Creed?"

_Creed _again. She wasn't supposed to call him that unless he was being a dick.

"If not, you can run off and go do whatever it is you do, now. I really am tired."

She had _expected_ him to run from the beginning, he realized. If she'd spent any time with him at all, she should know better.

He noted the dark circles under her green eyes, the lank fall of her hair.

_Wait. Green?_

He cupped her cheek, forcing her to look up at him, and sure enough, _green_.

A new flash of memory- _her bundled under his duster. Quietly feverish and fighting. Him being damned worried- a foreign emotion, if there ever was one._ It was his fault somehow, but even with that unsavory conclusion, he was damned pleased for the summoned insight.

He sure as hell hoped he remembered more. There were flickers and impressions, and his instincts were riding him hard, where she was concerned. But the details only came to the fore when he was around her. The X-Geeks had given him the facts as they saw them, but it was like being told a boring _story._ They didn't stir nothing in his memory. Marie did. And that was just the icing on the cake.

"Yeah. I'm here for a reason."

"Well?"

Her tone was combative, but she looked about ready to crack. He wondered at the last time she even slept. She needed to, and the Cat wanted nothing more than to snuggle up next to her and _rest._ The desire should have repulsed him, but it felt _right_, and after two sleepless nights, he was damned exhausted himself.

"I'm staying."

Her brow furrowed, obviously trying to discern his meaning. Victor generously clarified.

"Or you're going with me. I don't give a shit. But you're not gettin' rid of me by mopin' in here all day."

"I'm not _moping,_ you asshole!" She jerked away from his hold. High strung and exhausted. She was either about to claw his eyes out or break down crying.

She _had _been moping and _over him_, and goddamn if he wasn't a bastard for _liking_ it.

Victor growled at himself, and focused.

"Look," he started again, staring her dead in the eye. "I don't remember shit. I might not ever remember shit. But I'm not gonna just give _you _up without a fight. Seems like we got a lot'a talkin' and figuring out shit ahead of us, so let's start from the beginning."

He thrust his hand out, palm up, daring her to take it.

"Name's Victor, Victor Creed."

Her breath caught and Rogue choked out a watery laugh. A moment later, she slipped her deceptively dainty hand into his much larger one.

"Well, then, Victor, you can call me Marie."

"Good." It was settled as far as he was concerned. He nodded once and tugged her along by the hand. "Let's go to bed, darlin'. I'm fuckin' wiped."

"Wait! That's not how this- You are _not _sleeping- Put those back _on_!"

_That _was familiar, for all that it wasn't. They'd had this argument _a lot_.

"Aggh! You're such an ass!"

"That's what you always say." He nodded again, grinning, as he patted the space beside him on the tiny bed.

"Now, come on."

_The End._


End file.
